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NEW APPROACHES TO
BYZANTINE HISTORY AND CULTURE

Political Memory and the

Constantinian Dynasty
Fashioning Disgrace
Rebecca Usherwood
New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture

Series Editors
Florin Curta, University of Florida, FL, USA
Leonora Neville, University of Wisconsin Madison, WI, USA
Shaun Tougher, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture publishes high-quality
scholarship on all aspects of Byzantine culture and society from the fourth
to the fifteenth centuries, presenting fresh approaches to key aspects of
Byzantine civilization and new studies of unexplored topics to a broad
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engage medievalists beyond the narrow confines of Byzantine studies.
The core of the series is original scholarly monographs on various
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textual and material sources, that make exemplary use of advanced
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tices of other fields, such as gender theory, subaltern studies, religious
studies theory, anthropology, etc. to the study of Byzantine culture and
society.

More information about this series at

https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14755
 Rebecca Usherwood

Political Memory
and the Constantinian
Dynasty
Fashioning Disgrace
Rebecca Usherwood
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland

ISSN 2730-9363 ISSN 2730-9371 (electronic)

New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture
ISBN 978-3-030-87929-7 ISBN 978-3-030-87930-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87930-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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For my parents, Carole and David
 Acknowledgements

This book is a substantially revised version of my Ph.D. thesis, which

was generously funded by a Humanities studentship at the University of
Nottingham. My supervisor was Doug Lee, who is the best anyone could
hope for: thank you for putting up with my nonsense and keeping me
on track. I was extremely fortunate to hold a residential Rome Award at
the British School at Rome early in my Ph.D., an experience which had
an enormous impact on the content and direction of this book; particular
thanks are due to Christopher Smith and Robert Coates-Stephens. My
external examiner was Mark Humphries. Not only did Mark make my
viva a (mostly) enjoyable experience, but he also went into the process
with a full understanding that this was only the beginning of his trou-
bles. Thank you for spending the following years writing endless letters
of recommendation, for your advice and mentoring, and for everything
you do to make late Roman history a more welcoming field.
I have had the dubious pleasure of moving five times for work as
an early career academic, holding teaching posts at UCL, Nottingham,
Durham, and St Andrews, before arriving at Trinity College Dublin in
the summer of 2018. One drawback of this itinerant lifestyle is that
this project has taken longer to complete than I would have liked. The
advantage has been having the privilege of working with lots of inspiring
colleagues, and drawing upon the collective knowledge, expertise, and—
most important of all—kindness and encouragement of so many. I owe
special thanks to the following: at UCL, Simon Corcoran and Benet

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Salway; at Nottingham, Mark Bradley, Carl Buckland, John Drinkwater,

Lynn Fotheringham, and Oliver Thomas; at Durham, Ted Kaizer, Sarah
Miles, and Phillip Horky; at St Andrews, Michael Carroll, Dawn Hollis,
Jill Harries, Tom Harrison, Jason König, Carlos Machado, Roger Rees,
and Rebecca Sweetman.
I would also like to thank Laura Conroy, James Corke-Webster,
Thomas Coward, Nicola Ernst, Christopher Farrell, Richard Flower,
Becca Grose, Arianna Gullo, Jack Lennon, Julia Pfefferkorn, Shaun
Tougher, and Robin Whelan: you are all examples of the best that
academia has to offer. Myles Lavan was characteristically generous with his
time as my office mate in St Andrews and even after I left Scotland: a huge
thank you for all your insight and advice. A special thanks to Eleri Cousins
for finally convincing me that I’d produced a ‘book-shaped object’. Thank
you to my new department at Trinity for all your support, especially to
Martine Cuypers for her help in the final stages of this project.
Thanks are also due to those in the field who have spent so much
of their time and energy cataloguing and publishing epigraphic mate-
rial, and especially to those who have made that material easily accessible
online (Oxford’s Last Statues of Antiquity database and the Epigraphik-
Datenbank Clauss/Slaby were particularly important for this project:
my gratitude to their creators and contributors). I am grateful to the
following individuals and institutions for their generosity and assistance
in securing image permissions for this book: the American Numismatic
Society (especially Elena Stolyarik), Maria Daniela and Agnese Pergola at
the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome, Manfred Clauss, Nino Švonja at
the Arheološki muzej u Splitu, and Paolo Jorie at the Museo Correale,
Sorrento. To the series editors and especially Sam Stocker at Palgrave:
thank you for your professionalism and understanding.
Thank you to my many students over the years. You are endlessly
inspiring. I cannot believe I get paid to talk about the Romans with you.
For reading, advice, distraction, and encouragement, a big thanks to
Nick Akers, James Collings, Clare Corbett, Becky Harley, Kate Jacobs,
Maroula Perisanidi, Amy Skilbeck, Laura Trimingham, Laura Turnage,
everyone at InfoCat Ltd., and Phoebe and the kitkats. My love to
my grandmother, Mary, who was always encouraging of my academic
ventures (and once commented that the emperor Maxentius looks like
‘a very handsome chap’). I am sorry that you aren’t here to see the final
product, but you have certainly left your mark. Last but not least, thank
you to my parents, Carole and David. There is no way I could have done
this without you: this book is dedicated to you.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Political Memory, Disgrace, and Oblivion 7
Discourses of Disgrace 14
Central Direction and Local Action 21
The Materiality of Disgrace 26
References 39
2 Maximian 49
The Fall of Maximian 50
Disgrace and Iconoclasm 54
Maximian’s Disgrace in Constantine’s Territories 59
Civil War and the Spectre of Maximian 67
Maximian’s Disgrace in the Wider Roman World 75
Rehabilitating Maximian? 95
Conclusion: The Blurred Lines of Disgrace 105
References 106
3 Licinius 111
Licinius and Constantine 112
Civil War and a New Alliance 118
Licinius and the Law 128
The Disgrace of Licinius 132
Conclusion: The Emperor Vanishes 156
References 157

ix
x CONTENTS

4 Crispus 163
Crispus and Constantine 165
Silence and Scandal: Crispus’ Downfall in Ancient Accounts 172
Treason and Condemnation: Modern Interpretations 178
Crispus as a Disgraced Figure 182
Crispus and the Licinii 184
Crispus and the Constantinian Family 188
Conclusion: Constantinian Disgrace 207
References 208
5 Magnentius 213
Magnentius’ Supporters 217
The Disgrace of Constans 233
The Disgrace of Magnentius 250
Conclusion: The Limits of Disgrace 260
References 261
6 Epilogue 267
References 270

Appendix 1: Maximian 273

Appendix 2: Licinius 287
Appendix 3: Crispus 303
Appendix 4: Dating Decentius’ Elevation as Caesar 313
Bibliography 315
Index 341
 Abbreviations

AE L’Année épigraphique
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
ICUR Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae
IG Inscriptiones Graecae
ILAlg Inscriptions Latines de l’Algérie
ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae
ILTun Inscriptions Latines de la Tunisie
InscrIt Inscriptiones Italiae
LSA Last Statues of Antiquity (http://laststatues.classics.ox.ac.uk/)
PLRE Prospography of the Later Roman Empire
RIC Roman Imperial Coinage
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Plaque from statue base of Maximian from Segarra (AE
1908.3) (Illustration by author) 62
Fig. 2.2 Follis of divus Maximian, RIC VI Ostia no. 26. ANS
1984.146.117 (Photograph: American Numismatic
Society, reproduced with kind permission) 70
Fig. 2.3 Transcription of statue base of Maxentius from Caesarea
(CIL VIII.20989) 72
Fig. 2.4 Plaque from statue base of Diocletian and Maximian
with rededication to divus Maximian from Aletrium (CIL
X.5803, 5805) (Illustration by author) 73
Fig. 2.5 Statue base of Maximian from Patavium (CIL V.2818)
(Illustration by author) 81
Fig. 2.6 Transcription of fragmentary building plaque
with dedication to Diocletian as Senior Augustus,
from Tuscania (AE 1964.235) 82
Fig. 2.7 Fragments of Baths of Diocletian dedication panel(s)
from Rome (Museo Nazionale Romano, Terme di
Diocleziano, Inv. n. 115,813; 39,893. Photograph
by author, reproduced with kind permission
of the Ministry of Culture, Museo Nazionale Romano) 85
Fig. 2.8 Detail of fragment ‘d’ of Baths of Diocletian
dedication panel(s) (Museo Nazionale Romano,
Terme di Diocleziano, Inv. n. 115,813; 39,893.
Photograph by author, reproduced with kind permission
of the Ministry of Culture, Museo Nazionale Romano) 86

xiii
xiv LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 2.9 Statue base of Maximian from Teurnia (AE 1992.1359)

(Lower damage is due to later reuse. Illustration
by author) 91
Fig. 2.10 Bronze AE 3 of divus Maximian, RIC VII Siscia no. 4.
ANS 1994.123.33 (Photograph: American Numismatic
Society, reproduced with kind permission) 98
Fig. 2.11 Statue base of Constantine II, Celeia (CIL III.5207)
(Illustration by author) 103
Fig. 3.1 Gold aureus of Licinius Iunior, RIC VII Antioch no. 33.
ANS 1994.100.8978 (Photograph American Numismatic
Society, reproduced with kind permission) 118
Fig. 3.2 Triumphal arch in Cillium (CIL VIII.210). (Photograph
by Manfred Clauss, reproduced with kind permission) 121
Fig. 3.3 Detail of Constantinian/Licinian inscription on the arch
at Cillium (Photograph by Manfred Clauss, reproduced
with kind permission) 122
Fig. 3.4 Transcription of base of Licinius from Parentium (CIL
V.330) 140
Fig. 3.5 Statue base of Licinius from Pola (CIL V.31)
(Photograph by author) 141
Fig. 3.6 Detail of altar from Salona (CIL III.1968). Arheološki
muzej u Splitu inv. no. AMS A-187 (Photograph
by Tonći Seser, reproduced with kind permission) 144
Fig. 3.7 Dedicatory plaque from city gate, Tropaea Traiani (CIL
III.13734) (Illustration by author) 147
Fig. 3.8 Transcription of base with dedication to Crispus,
Licinius Iunior, and Constantine II, altered to Crispus,
Constantine, and Constantius II, Kos (IG-4,2.904).
Emboldening indicates carving into indentations left
by erased text 151
Fig. 4.1 Bronze AE 3 of Crispus, RIC VII Trier no. 142. ANS
1979.78.25 (Photograph: American Numismatic Society,
reproduced with kind permission) 168
Fig. 4.2 Transcription of milestone of Constantine and sons
with Crispus erased, Tolbiacum (AE 1967.341) 189
Fig. 4.3 Transcription of double statue base from Samothrace,
after Friedrich (IG XII-8.244), translation after LSA-826 194
Fig. 4.4 Plaque with dedication to Constantine, Crispus,
and Constantine II, Ostia (CIL VI.40770) (Photograph
by author) 196
Fig. 4.5 Detail of Fig. 4.4 (Photograph by author) 197
 LIST OF FIGURES xv

Fig. 4.6 Transcription of equestrian statue base of Crispus, Puteoli

(AE 1969/70.108) 197
Fig. 4.7 Statue base of Fausta, Surrentum (CIL X.678).
Museo Correale inv. 55 sala 4 (Photograph by author,
reproduced with kind permission of the Museo Correale
di Terranova, Sorrento) 201
Fig. 4.8 Detail of Fig. 4.7 with reconstruction of erased words
(Photograph by author, reproduced with kind permission
of the Museo Correale di Terranova, Sorrento) 202
Fig. 4.9 Transcription of base of Helena, Salernum (CIL X.517) 204
Fig. 5.1 Transcription of forum transitorium inscription, Mustis
(AE 1933.105. Textual reconstruction after Beschaouch
2005) 224
Fig. 5.2 Gold medallion of Magnentius, RIC VIII Aquileia aq.
not. ANS 1967.256.2 (Photograph American Numismatic
Society, reproduced with kind permission) 235
Fig. 5.3 Statue base of Constans with rededication under Fabius
Titianus, Rome (CIL VI.40783a, 41335a) (Illustration
by author) 238
Fig. 5.4 Transcription of statue base of Constans, Rome (CIL
VI.40782) 239
Fig. 5.5 Circus restoration dedication, Augusta Emerita (AE
1927.165) (Illustration by author) 242
Fig. 5.6 Tiber restoration plaque with dedication to Constantius
and Constans, Tibur (CIL XIV.3582) (Photograph
by author) 245
Fig. 5.7 Detail of Fig. 5.6 (Photograph by author) 246
Fig. 5.8 Equestrian statue base of Constantius II, Forum
Romanum, Rome (CIL VI.1158) (Illustration by author) 253
Fig. 5.9 Transcription of lost statue base of Magnentius, Rome
(CIL VI.1166) 255
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Non-milestone dedications including Maximian

from within Constantine’s territories in 310 60
Table 2.2 Milestones including Maximian from within Constantine’s
territories in 310 60
Table 2.3 Milestones including Maximian from outside
Constantine’s territories in 310 78
Table 2.4 Other dedications including Maximian from outside
Constantine’s territories in 310 79
Table 3.1 Milestones including Licinius and/or Licinius Iunior 133
Table 3.2 Other dedications including Licinius and/or Licinius
Iunior 134
Table 4.1 Milestones including Crispus 185
Table 4.2 Milestones including Crispus, broken down by collegiate
grouping 185
Table 4.3 Other dedications including Crispus 190
Table 4.4 Other dedications including Crispus, broken
down by collegiate grouping 191
Table 5.1 Urban prefects of Magnentius 225

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

When all hope was destined to fail and the will to make peace abandoned,
who could doubt that he [Maxentius] was divinely delivered to your arms,
when he had attained such a degree of madness that he even provoked, on
his own, the one whom he ought to have tried to win over? Oh, what sharp
and painful stings you have, insult, when inflicted by an inferior! Behold,
for sorrow! (words come with difficulty), the violent overthrow of revered
images and the vile erasure of the divine face! O impious hands, O savage
eyes! … But in the end what do you gain, blind madness? This face cannot
be destroyed. It is fixed on the hearts of all men. It does not shine by the
gilding of beeswax or the dye of pigments, but blossoms forth through the
longing of our spirits. Constantine will only be forgotten when the human
race is destroyed.
Nazarius, panegyric in praise of Constantine 1

1 Pan. Lat. IV(10) 12.1–5 (after Nixon and Saylor Rodgers trans.): Cum spes omnis
frigere debuerit et voluntas pacificandi alienata sit, quis dubitet divinitus armis tuis
deditum, cum eo dementiae processerit ut ultro etiam lacesseret quem ambire deberet? O
quam acres dolorum aculeos habes, contumelia quam imponit inferior! Ecce enim, pro dolor!
(verba vix suppetunt), venerandarum imaginum acerba deiectio et divini vultus litura
deformis. O manus impiae, o truces oculi! […] Sed quid tandem adsequeris, caeca dementia?
Aboleri vultus hic non potest. Universorum pectoribus infixus est, nec commendatione cerae
ac pigmentorum fucis renitet sed desiderio efflorescit animorum. Una demum Constantini
oblivio est humani generis occasus.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
R. Usherwood, Political Memory and the Constantinian Dynasty,
New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87930-3_1
2 R. USHERWOOD

This passage is a fitting point of departure for an examination of

Roman concepts of political disgrace since it highlights many of the
contradictions which surround the phenomenon. Firstly, it represents a
divergence from the conventional view of image-destruction as a punish-
ment inflicted posthumously on disgraced officials or failed emperors.
Here, the expected scenario is inverted, with the ‘bad’ emperor Maxen-
tius attacking the images of the ‘good’ emperor Constantine. Moreover,
far from being overthrown or dead, Constantine was still alive and ruling
when these attacks are said to have taken place; the portrait abuse instead
serves as both an overture to, and justification for, Maxentius’ own elim-
ination and disgrace. Secondly, the passage highlights the obstacles to
using such literary accounts as evidence for genuine practice. Not only is
this passage the only surviving piece of evidence, either literary or mate-
rial, which suggests that Constantine’s honorific images were attacked as
part of this civil conflict, the context also makes its veracity questionable,
since it forms a climactic moment in a speech delivered almost a decade
after Maxentius’ death, praising the character and justifying the actions of
his conqueror. Nevertheless, it has consistently been accepted by modern
commentators as proof of an actual, historical event.2
Damnatio memoriae is a modern phrase, used as an umbrella term for
a wide range of measures which the Romans used to denigrate, distort, or
nullify the memories of those who were, for various reasons, deemed to
have been disgraced. These measures changed with the passage of time,
along with wider shifts in cultural priorities and forms of commemora-
tion. From the confiscation of property, razing of houses, and banning of
names and funerary honours in the insular aristocratic world of Repub-
lican Rome,3 actions grew more public and ostentatious in the context of
the empire, when images of the emperor, imperial family, and other offi-
cials were prominent and widely disseminated. Portraits were vandalised,
removed, or recarved into others; dedications could be disfigured or
altered; a victim’s name and titles could be erased from inscriptions with
varying degrees of thoroughness; official legal acts could be nullified;
coins could be countermarked. In rarer cases, such as that of Maxentius,

2 Smith (1971: 91), Pohlsander (1996: 19), Stewart (2003: 269, 287), Marlowe (2006:
228–229), and Killerich (2014: 64).
3 See Mustakallio (1994) for sanctions against memory from the earliest periods of
Rome’s history, Flower (2006: Chapters 3–5) for the early to later Republican period,
and Bats (2007) for the time of Sulla.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

a victim’s body was treated with the disrespect and malice customarily
reserved for criminals and other social outcasts.4 The past twenty years
have witnessed a significant growth of interest in these phenomena: their
mechanics, motivations, and the contradictions which were inherent in
their use.5 These modern investigations have urged us to view damnatio
memoriae not as a monolithic or homogenous set of penalties, but instead
as an inventive and adaptive process, and thus a lens through which the
priorities of an age can be examined.
This book is an examination of political disgrace from Constantine’s
rise to power until the accession of Julian, the last of the Constantinian
emperors. This period, encompassing roughly the first half of the fourth
century CE, was a time of profound political, religious, and cultural
change, and witnessed an unprecedented number of emperors suffering
from the penalties associated with political disgrace.6 Surviving literary
and material evidence indicates that, of seventeen emperors and other
major imperial claimants, fifteen were inflicted with some form of these
measures.7 This prevalence can be explained by features particular to this
age, above all the establishment of a collegiate form of imperial govern-
ment, increasing the number of emperors holding power at any one time,
which combined with political instability. Meanwhile, our understanding
of the political situation is also complicated by our reliance, particularly
for the earlier years of the fourth century, on Christian sources which were
written or revised in the aftermath of the Great Persecution. Disgrace is a
central theme of such narratives, and these Christian discourses have had

4 For associations between the treatment of the bodies of infames and disgraced
members of the elite, see Kyle (1998: 131–133).
5 See especially Hedrick (2000), Varner (2004), Flower (2006), Benoist and Lefevre
(2007), Krüpe (2011), Crespo Pérez (2014), and Omissi (2018).
6 By contrast, the Julio-Claudian period and its immediate aftermath witnessed measures
against only the emperors Caligula, Nero, Galba, and Otho, and a small number of other
prominent men, such as Sejanus. Instead, this period is distinct for its prevalence of
imperial women being subjected to these types of penalties: Varner (2001; 2004: 21–108)
and Flower (2006: 160–194).
7 Diocletian: Lactant. De mort. pers. 42.1–2 and inscriptions; Maximian: Lactant. De
mort. pers. 42, Euseb. Hist. eccl. 8.13.15, Vit. Const. 1.47.1, and inscriptions; Maximinus
Daia: Euseb. Hist. eccl. 9.11 and inscriptions; Maxentius: inscriptions, portraiture, and
monuments; Licinius: Euseb. Hist. eccl. 10.9.5, inscriptions and portraiture; Severus,
Galerius, Crispus, Licinius Iunior, Dalmatius, Constantine II, Constans, Magnentius,
Decentius, and Gallus: inscriptions.
4 R. USHERWOOD

a significant impact on the ways in which scholars have interpreted events.

As a consequence, the Constantinian age presents a unique opportunity
to explore the later evolution of Roman notions of political failure and
dishonour.
Despite several influential publications over the past twenty years which
redress the concept, a view prevails that so-called damnatio memoriae was
centralised, immediate, and totalising. This book uses four detailed and
contrasting case studies to draw out distinctive features of these prac-
tices which stand at odds with this perspective. My central argument is
that the penalties associated with political disgrace were neither imme-
diate nor universal, neither centrally imposed nor regulated. By contrast,
I argue that they reveal a spectrum of local responses to political change.
As a consequence, this book not only shines light on Roman concepts
of political disgrace, but provides wider insights on how imperial power
could be communicated, understood, and interpreted across wide swathes
of geographical space. Moreover, its argument that the transformation of
these political figures into objects of disgrace was a communal enterprise,
created over an extended period of time in a variety of media and by
a range of different people, resonates with wider academic discourse on
memory as a social and collective phenomenon.8
The Constantinian dynasty was built on the failure of its imperial
opponents. In practice, this was an uneasy foundation since, more often
than not, these opponents were either closely related to or even part of
the Constantinian family. This book’s first case study is Maximian (r.
285–310), former Augustus of the Tetrarchy and the father-in-law of
Constantine, who was eliminated by the younger emperor in 310. The
survival of multiple literary accounts of the destruction of Maximian’s
honorific images has cemented his position as a paradigm of political
disgrace. However, the most puzzling feature of this episode is the fact
that, seven years after he had killed his father-in-law, Constantine began
issuing coinage which declared that he was now a divus , a deified figure. I
unravel this episode through a close examination of the surviving literary,
numismatic, and epigraphic evidence, the latter in particular revealing
a wide variety of local responses to Maximian’s downfall in different
regions of the empire. Tracing the evolution of Maximian’s posthumous
status until the time of Julian, I argue that the emperor embodies the

8 See especially Fentress and Wickham (1992), Markovits and Reich (1997), Misztal
(2003), and Castelli (2004).
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

complexity of Roman attitudes to imperial memorialisation, one which

extends beyond the binary of ‘damned’ versus ‘deified’. Maximian was
never forgotten, but nor was he simply ‘rehabilitated’. Instead, he blurred
the lines between political honour and political disgrace.
The second chapter considers another close ally turned opponent of
Constantine: the emperor Licinius (r. 308–324) who was married to
Constantine’s sister, Constantia. Licinius was Constantine’s final imperial
rival from the disintegrated Tetrarchy, so the deconstruction of his legiti-
macy, as well as the rewriting of his relationship with Constantine, formed
a cornerstone of Constantine’s authority as sole ruler of the empire.
Constantine and Licinius’ turbulent decade-long co-emperorship, with its
initial inconclusive civil war, leading to a new treaty where the borders
between their territories were redrawn, provides the ideal conditions to
trace distinct stages of reactions in a contested political environment.
This chapter lays out most clearly one of this book’s key arguments: that
condemnation was neither immediate nor necessarily posthumous, but
part of a protracted process which could begin before a ruler had even
been decisively defeated.
Crispus (r. 317–326), the eldest son of Constantine, who was elim-
inated by his own father in mysterious circumstances, is my third case
study. Like Maximian, Crispus has been regarded as an archetype of
damnatio memoriae.9 However, rather than being inspired by literary
descriptions of the destruction of his images, this view is based on
the conspicuous silences which surround his downfall, which create the
impression that he had been ‘vaporised’ without any form of public expla-
nation. After establishing the status and position which Crispus occupied
within his father’s regime, and how the treatment of his posthumous
memory features in both ancient and modern explanations of his death,
I turn to a full consideration of the epigraphic evidence for his disgrace.
This understudied body of material offers contemporary documentation
of the different kinds of reactions generated by Crispus’ elimination.
Rather than a centrally driven campaign to forget Crispus by expunging
all traces of him from the empire, what emerges is a situation where some
were hesitant to attack the young emperor’s memory, whilst others openly
and proudly dishonoured him.

9 For example, MacMullen (1969: 187), Pohlsander (1984: 98; 1996: 58), Burgess
(2008: 7, 13), Stephenson (2009: 200), and Barnes (2011: 5).
6 R. USHERWOOD

The final chapter moves forward a quarter of a century to an empire

inherited by Constantine’s sons. It examines the case of Magnentius
(r. 350–353), the emperor who eliminated Constans, Constantine’s
youngest son, gaining control of half of the empire, and then posed a
prolonged threat to Constantius II, the last surviving son of Constan-
tine. As an individual who stood outside of the Constantinian dynasty,
Magnentius garnered a western support base of individuals who had
formerly served Constantine and his sons. Consequently, this chapter
not only examines how Magnentius was treated both during and after
his eventual defeat, but also how the memory of the Constantinian
dynasty was managed in the territories which fell under the new emperor’s
control. Constans and Magnentius, both failed emperors, were in similar
ways reduced to the status of tyranni (‘tyrants’) after their removal, trans-
formed into scapegoats who were condemned in isolation, allowing for
the survival and absolution of anyone who had supported them. Here,
we witness a reframing of the past to meet the ongoing needs of the
present, a present that treated recent events with selective amnesia and
selective commemoration.10
An obvious question is: given the prevalence of disgraced emperors
in the late third to mid-fourth centuries, why these particular four case
studies? This book prioritises depth over breadth, an approach designed to
avoid the assumption that disgrace followed a standard pathway, and to do
justice to the large and complex body of material evidence. My method-
ology weighs surviving literary evidence against this material evidence,
chiefly inscriptions, so a key rationale behind my choice of focus is
the quantity and territorial distribution of these sources. The four case
studies were also chosen with balance in mind, as each of them exempli-
fies a scenario where disgrace unfolded in a distinct way. An important
factor in this is the disparate relationships between the examined indi-
vidual and Constantine or his sons: a broken alliance between a senior
and a junior emperor (Maximian); a troubled relationship of nominal
equals (Licinius); a junior emperor viewed as an ideological extension
of his father (Crispus); an imperial claimant who remained determinedly
unrecognised by his would-be co-emperor (Magnentius).

10 For the relationship between memory (and forgetting) and political transition,
reconciliation, and continuity, see especially Loraux (2002) and Assmann and Shortt
(2012).
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Though each chapter has its central focus, each also incorporates at
least two additional individuals with whom the central figure’s disgrace
was somehow entangled. My examination of Maximian’s posthumous
reputation involves a detailed treatment of the regime of his son, Maxen-
tius, as well as some discussion of Diocletian, his colleague of over
twenty years. The case of Licinius requires consideration of his young
son, Licinius Iunior, as well as the emperor Maximinus Daia. Due to the
proximity of their relative downfalls, analysis of the epigraphic evidence
for Crispus’ disgrace requires revisiting the Licinii, as well as a discus-
sion of possible connections to the disappearance of Crispus’ stepmother,
Fausta. Finally, my chapter on Magnentius involves considerable analysis
of the treatment of the ideological and material legacy of Constans, as well
as some thought about the precedent set by the death of Constantine II
a decade earlier. Hence, through its four case studies, this book aims to
do due justice to the breadth and complexity of evidence, practices, and
attitudes surrounding political disgrace in the Constantinian era.

Political Memory, Disgrace, and Oblivion

This book’s four case studies and overarching arguments are embedded
in wider themes of memory, disgrace, and the rhetoric of forgetting, all
of which have a considerable history in modern scholarship. The 1936
doctoral thesis of Freidrich Vittinghoff was the first detailed modern study
of the methods by which the Roman state attacked the memory of those
deemed to be public enemies. In his close examination of the ancient legal
and technical language used to target remembrance, Vittinghoff high-
lighted that the term damnatio memoriae belongs to the early modern
rather than the ancient world and was never used by the Romans them-
selves.11 Vittinghoff also drew attention to some of the inconsistencies
found in practice, such as the case of Caligula, an emperor who was
never officially condemned by the Senate but still suffered a form of
de facto condemnation, since inscriptions survive where his name has
been erased.12 Hence, it has long been recognised that Roman atti-
tudes to political disgrace were intricate and evolving, and the modern

11 Vittinghoff (1936: 64–74). The first attested use of damnatio memoriae is in the
title of a dissertation written by Schrieter and Gerlach in 1689: see Stewart (1999: 184
n.3) and Flower (2006: xix).
12 Vittinghoff (1936: 13).
8 R. USHERWOOD

use of a static label or concept to encompass these practices is inherently

problematic.
However, damnatio memoriae is still commonly used in modern schol-
arship, both of the Roman world and beyond, as well as in contemporary
journalism.13 The key reason for this is the convenience of the term,
combined with the sense that it encompasses a concept and phenomena
which are timeless and ubiquitous across cultures. One of the greatest
appeals of damnatio memoriae is its universalism. From the pulling down
and destruction of public statues to crowds vandalising the signs of
streets named after disgraced leaders, these practices evoke our imagina-
tion because we see them at play in our contemporary world.14 Yet it has
been observed that, in these modern contexts, iconoclasm is an ineffec-
tive way of creating oblivion. From the widely disseminated photographs
of these instances of violent attacks, to the statue plinths which are left
vacant in city centres, these moments become memorials of disgrace in
themselves, far more eye-catching and enduring than the original forms
of commemoration.15
Psychological approaches to the ways in which humans create and
forget memories have explored the paradoxical roles which personal or
authoritative agency can play. For example, the research of American
social psychologist Daniel Wegner demonstrated that ordering people to
forget or avoid thinking about something can have the opposite effect,
leading the object or event to become more deeply ingrained in memory,
a phenomenon for which he coined the term ‘ironic process theory’.16
Though it is possible to make individuals intentionally forget something
(so-called motivated forgetting), the right conditions need to be in place,

13 For example, see Westenholz (2012: 89) for its use in an ancient Akkadian context,
or Robey (2013) for its application to Renaissance Florence. Damnatio memoriae was used
by a number of media outlets in reference to the tearing down of confederate monuments
in Baltimore in the summer of 2017. See, for example, Davis Hanson (2017).
14 See Osgood (2007: 1588), who describes Roman practices as ‘eerily modern, like
those of a Stalinist purge or the vaporization of “unpersons” in George Orwell’s 1984’.
In contrast, see Flower (2006: 7) for an emphasis on the cultural specificity of Roman
practices.
15 See Forty (1999: 10) on removal of statues of communist heroes in Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union after 1989.
16 See Wegner (1994).
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

such as deliberate avoidance of the object of recollection, active exclu-

sion or suppression of ideas, or a change in physical context.17 The kind
of conspicuous defamation created by ancient practices, where the once-
honoured figure’s fall from grace is paraded, clearly does not meet these
conditions. Hence, damnatio memoriae is a pantomime of forgetting.
Memory occupied a central position in Roman culture.18 However,
scholars of the Roman world were relatively slow to engage with the so-
called memory boom which has touched disciplines as diverse as history,
social sciences, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, literary studies,
media studies, and neuroscience over the past thirty years.19 Damnatio
memoriae is the aspect of Roman memory-practices which attracted the
earliest attention. A handful of articles were published over the half
century which followed Vittinghoff’s monograph,20 but it was the 1990s
which witnessed a growth in interest, particularly in American scholar-
ship, not only in the practices associated with damnatio memoriae, but
also in the creation of a more comprehensive and critical approach to
the ideology and inherent contradictions of the phenomenon. An impor-
tant contribution to this was the discovery in Spain in the late 1980s of
bronze copies of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre, a senato-
rial decree which outlines the punishments to be inflicted on the Roman
aristocrat Piso, who had been accused of treason during the reign of the
emperor Tiberius.21 This document, which contains a number of specifi-
cations concerning the treatment of Piso’s public memory (the banning of
his name, its erasure from specific inscriptions, the removal of his statues
and images from both public and private places), stimulated discussions

17 Pennebacker and Banasik (1997: 10–11), Anderson (2009: 220–221), and Brandt
(2016: 263–267).
18 See, for example, Gowing (2005: 2): ‘Romans attached a heightened importance to
memory, which manifests itself in almost every aspect of their existence’, and Galinsky
(2014: 1): ‘Memory defined Roman civilization’.
19 The work of Susan Alcock (2001, 2002), is a notable exception. The most compre-
hensive engagement with theories of social memory in Roman contexts can be found in
the three edited volumes which emerged from Karl Galinsky’s Memoria Romana project:
Galinsky (2014, 2015, 2016). For critical general discussions of the origins, development,
and shifting appeal of the ‘memory boom’, see: Gedi and Elam (1996), Hutton (2000),
Klein (2000), Cattell and Climo (2002), Berliner (2005), White (2006), and Bond et al.
(2017).
20 For example, Sijpesteijn (1974), Pollini (1984), and Pallier and Sablayrolles (1994).
21 Eck et al. (1996), Damon and Takács (1999), and de Castro-Camero (2000).
10 R. USHERWOOD

about the meaning and precedents of these punishments, as well as their

intended effects.22
When the major works on Roman attitudes to political memory and
disgrace are placed side by side, what is striking is the range of different
approaches which the topic has stimulated. The work of Eric Varner has
centred on mutilated and reworked portraiture and sculpture, and related
issues of image and body destruction.23 Harriet Flower’s seminal The Art
of Forgetting, which focuses on the Republican and early Imperial periods,
contemplates the manipulation of political memory in a broader sense,
as an aspect of Roman ‘memory space’, encompassing not just portraits,
dedications, inscriptions, and monuments, but also rituals, oral traditions,
and written texts.24 Charles W. Hedrick’s History and Silence represents
another kind of approach. Hedrick used a single inscription from the end
of the fourth century, honouring the condemned and then rehabilitated
senator Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, as a springboard into a variety of
discussions on issues such as the character of paganism in late antique
Rome and the commemorative functions of editing. His fourth chapter,
‘Remembering to Forget’, draws upon the works of social theorists such
as Jan Assmann and Paul Connerton, which have been fundamental to the
wider academic ‘memory boom’. Using modern examples of the manip-
ulation of collective memory as points of reference, Hedrick highlights
the dangers inherent in bringing the same expectations to ancient prac-
tices, especially for how systematically measures were applied.25 He makes
a compelling argument that, in the Roman context, it was the intention
that actions disgracing individuals should be incomplete, since they gained
their symbolic force from the visibility of their implementation.
Despite these important contributions to our understanding of Roman
political disgrace, certain myths of damnatio memoriae persist. Three
misconceptions are widespread in scholarship. First, that it was possible
to declare or impose ‘the’ or ‘a’ damnatio memoriae, as though it was

22 Kajava (1995), Eck et al. (1996), and Griffin (1997); the American Journal of
Philology special edition on the document, ed. Potter (1999), especially Bodel and Flower.
23 Varner (2000a, 2004). For related work on spolia, see especially Kinney (1997),
Elsner (2000), Galinsky (2008).
24 Flower (2006: 276) ‘The Romans, especially those who wrote history, saw memory
(memoria) as if it were a discrete space, filled with monuments, inscriptions, portraits,
written accounts, and other testimonials to the life of Roman citizens.’
25 Hedrick (2000: 92).
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

a standard or customary legal procedure.26 Second, that measures were

implemented in a methodical or systematic manner, when a holistic review
of the surviving evidence demonstrates that generally only a fraction of
material was ever affected.27 Third, and most pervasive, is the idea that
such measures were designed to forcefully and completely erase a victim
from collective consciousness, to make them ‘disappeared’ like an elim-
inated opponent of a totalitarian regime, or an ‘unperson’ such as in
George Orwell’s novel 1984.28 Outside of Roman scholarship, damnatio
memoriae has become a paradigm of social memory control at work, one
which both foreshadowed and inspired these modern manifestations and
dystopian visions.29
This book uses the unique conditions of the Constantinian period
to offer new perspectives on these ideas of so-called damnatio memo-
riae. Drawing upon the extensive material evidence from the first half
of the fourth century, above all the hundreds of inscriptions which have
survived from across the Roman world, and integrating them with literary
evidence, I reconstruct the political and social environment within which
the actions associated with disgrace were carried out. My discussions pay
close attention to temporal and regional intricacies, arguing that these
practices were uneven and inconsistent across time and space, reflecting
self-guided actions by individuals and communities responding to polit-
ical events rather than central enforcement. Through a close examination
of the subtleties of these responses in four contrasting case studies, I aim
to open new avenues for our understanding of the diversities of ancient
experiences of, and reactions to, wider political change.

26 For example, Burgess (2008) and Lenski (2012: 70).

27 For example, Pohlsander (1984: 101) and Varner (2004: 221 n.62) reference a small
number of erased inscriptions of Crispus as evidence for systematic condemnation. See also
Pollini (2006: 590–597).
28 Barnes makes this assumption of both Crispus and Constantine II: (1993: 51; 2011:
5).
29 See Childs (2016: 268–269) on Roman damnatio memoriae (misunderstood as a
decree ‘to erase an individual entirely from public memory and discourse’) as a historical
influence on Orwell’s concept of ‘memory-holes’.
12 R. USHERWOOD

Terminology
Harriet Flower is clear in her reservations against using damnatio memo-
riae and avoids it throughout her monograph, though accepts that it
might be used as a convenient and familiar shorthand.30 Some scholars
have followed suit and now avoid the term, though this does not neces-
sarily mean that they avoid falling into the traps it poses.31 Varner
and Hedrick use damnatio memoriae throughout their work, acknowl-
edging its modern origin with varying degrees of explicitness.32 It remains
common in scholarship.33
The main issue is a lack of suitable alternatives. Hedrick suggests
‘repression’, ‘purge’, and ‘anathematization’, the last of which seems
somewhat fitting, whilst the first two seem too evocative of the twentieth-
century totalitarian models which he maintains are anachronistic.34
Flower offers ‘memory sanctions’, which is well suited to her broad
conception of Roman ‘memory space’. Both this phrase and the frame-
work which supports it have been highly influential, especially since they
move analysis beyond erased inscriptions and pulled-down statues, and
make space for discussions of the generative as well as destructive quali-
ties of such processes.35 However, it is not without flaws, since the word
‘sanctions’ carries implications of official authorisation and fixed legal
procedures.
It has been suggested that the pervasiveness of damnatio memoriae
means that we can never discard the label, despite the sometimes reduc-
tive ways in which it is still employed.36 In this book, I only use it when
addressing the arguments of others, and especially in cases where the

30 Flower (2006: xix; see also 1998: 155–156).

31 Barnes, having previously used the phrase (e.g. 1981: 41), now avoids it. However,
his new terms of reference continue to make the same assumptions that Flower’s rejection
of damnatio memoriae sought to avoid (e.g. 2011: 5: ‘[Constantine II] suffered abolitio
memoriae and officially became, like Crispus, an unperson for a decade or more’).
32 See Flower (2001–2002: 208) for a critique of Hedrick’s use of the term (‘he tends
to talk in terms of “the” damnatio memoriae as if it were a system of standard penalties’).
See Stewart (1999: 161) for an approval of the term (in reference to the edict against
Eutropius, Cod. Theod. 9.40.17) as ‘well suited to this kind of socio-legal annihilation’.
33 For example, Krüpe (2011), Crespo Pérez (2014), and Östenberg (2019).
34 Hedrick (2000: 93).
35 For example, Omissi (2016).
36 Omissi (2016: 170; 2018: 37).
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

anachronisms the phrase engenders are particularly apparent. I also avoid

‘memory sanctions’ because, in the period on which this book focuses,
the senate of Rome had long been obsolete as a body for deciding the
posthumous commemoration of emperors, and the reliability of literary
sources which claim that emperors personally ordered such measures is
questionable.37 Though the policies and ideologies crafted and commu-
nicated by emperors and their courts were of paramount importance in
deciding the treatment of the legacies of imperial rivals, this book seeks
to create a distinction between these centralised messages and the ways in
which they were—or, in many cases, were not—implemented by different
actors across the empire.
The Fashioning Disgrace of this book’s title refers to the collective
and communal process whereby a once-honoured political figure was
transformed into a disgraced figure. Physical evidence is central to this.
Unavoidably, my analysis focuses on the objects and monuments which
have happened to survive the passage of time, though I recognise the
roles which now-lost material might have played. When, in my analysis, I
speak of the ‘physical manifestations’ of an individual’s political identity,
his ‘material presence’ or ‘political memory’, I mean aspects which existed
because of this individual’s status, because he was an emperor. The image
and name of an emperor were present in a variety of media, well beyond
the portraits, statues, or statue bases that now draw the most attention. All
of these media and behaviours, such as the issuing of coinage or the prac-
tice of inscribing an emperor’s name as a consular date, were intrinsically
associated with the emperor’s authority: their use constituted the recog-
nition of his legitimacy, in regions both inside and outside of his direct
sphere of control.38 These physical aspects of imperial identity could then
be targeted as a potent way of rejecting this emperor and the status which
he had held, thus reversing his honoured position, and retrospectively
nullifying the relationships and alliances which he had formed with his
former co-rulers. In particular, actions taken against the imperial name as
it appeared on various kinds of inscription are a key focus in this book.

37 MacCormack (1981: 107–109) and Humphries (2015: 151–152).

38 See Noreña (2011: 300–324) and Hekster (2015: 1–2, 30–38) for recent discussions
of the ideological construct of Roman emperorship, and the different media and agents
involved.
14 R. USHERWOOD

Discourses of Disgrace
The example with which I began this introduction, in which the orator
Nazarius gives his account of Maxentius’ destruction of Constantine’s
images, illustrates a central theme of this book, namely the ways in which
the literary evidence for iconoclasm and related practices fail to corre-
spond with the surviving material evidence. There has been a tendency in
modern scholarship to focus on literary accounts of these acts of destruc-
tion and then use selective examples of surviving physical evidence, such
as damaged statues or erased inscriptions, to reinforce and confirm their
content.39 Whilst written accounts might refer to the wholesale, empire-
wide destruction of an individual’s images and other dedications, material
evidence—particularly epigraphic evidence—tells a different story, where
the majority of the physical traces of an emperor’s political memory
survived the ‘campaign’ unscathed.
I do not seek to disregard literary accounts, but to give weight to
the circumstances in which these narratives were created. The destruc-
tion and disgrace inflicted on imperial victims was an imagined process as
much as it was a tangible one, and this reality should be acknowledged
from the outset. As we have already seen in the case of Nazarius’ pane-
gyric, authors had their own political, moral, religious, or aesthetic reasons
for mentioning—or, equally, not mentioning—these practices. Moreover,
such accounts are rarely eye-witness reports, but instead formed part of
wider narrative discourses which drew upon literary conventions, imagi-
nation, and as we will see in the case of Christian writers, a certain level of
wishful thinking. Ultimately, the writers who engaged in these discourses,
envisioning how these long-established methods of inflicting dishonour
could play out in their own or past environments, were constructing
their own monuments of disgrace. This does not mean that we should
expect to find them replicated in the archaeological record. My discus-
sion explores the gap between this rhetoric and reality, and what it means
for our understanding of Roman notions of political dishonour.

39 See, for example, Varner (2004) on iconoclasm narratives in the cases of Vitellius
(108–110), Domitian (112–125) and Maximinus Daia (220–221). For criticism of his
approach, see, e.g., Machado (2007: 342–345).
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

Agency in Iconoclasm Discourses

Physical traces left on an object and the archaeological context of its
discovery can reveal clues as to who might have carried out attacks. They
might, for example, give some indication of the intentions behind such
modifications: was it a careful and premeditated erasure, requiring time
and skill, or a violent and perhaps impulsive assault? Parallels have been
drawn between the find-spots of mutilated statues in sewers, latrines,
cisterns, and rivers, and literary accounts of the posthumous desecration
and deposition of the bodies of some fallen emperors.40 Nevertheless,
archaeological clues such as these are few and far between, and most
evidence reveals little about the political and cultural framework of such
attacks, or the motivations which lay behind them.41 Literary evidence
has an important role to play in supplementing these gaps in our under-
standing, particularly in furnishing possible answers to key questions,
such as who might have ordered such attacks, or who was considered
responsible for carrying them out.
Two distinct themes can be detected in literary accounts of polit-
ical iconoclasm: image-destruction which takes place as the result of a
command from an authority (either the Senate or the emperor), and that
which is the result of sporadic mob violence.42 In practice, however, this
division was blurred. As we will see in due course, in the case of legal
evidence there was a considerable gap between intention and actual imple-
mentation, and it was recognised that centralised commands could be
ineffective. Moreover, literary accounts often present mobs as the instru-
ments which enforced centrally-decided policies. As Bats has pointed out,
it is rare that ancient authors describe the formal mechanics or procedures
behind such orders in any detail, focusing instead on aspects such as the
humiliation brought about by the destruction or mockery of his statues.43

40 For the discovery of a head of Diadumenian in the latrine of the vigilies in Ostia,
see Stewart (2003: 271), and Varner (2004: 107–108). For the treatment of the bodies
of noxii, see Kyle (1998: 131–133) and Varner (2005) for its relation to statue abuse in
the Roman context, and May (2012: 18) for the parallels with corporal punishment in
Near Eastern precedents.
41 See Stewart (2003: 278).
42 See Stewart (1999: 168; 2003: 278–279), for what he calls ‘the myth of mindless
violence’, a literary trope wherein iconoclasm is presented as a result of sporadic mob
outbursts.
43 Bats (2003: 281).
16 R. USHERWOOD

For example, Lactantius, in his narrative of the destruction of Maximian’s

honorific images, specifies that these measures were taking place ‘at the
order of Constantine’ (Constantini iussu, De mort. pers. 42.1), but reveals
nothing of who was actually executing this order, or where it was being
implemented.
This ambiguity is typical of the literary accounts from the period under
discussion, which tend to focus on the dramatic consequences of disgrace,
favouring general statements of systematic obliteration over descriptions
of specific examples of iconoclasm. Lactantius asserts that, as a result of
Constantine’s order, Maximian’s portraits were pulled down ‘everywhere’
(ubicumque), omitting mention of the fact that the emperor only had
direct control over Britain, Gaul, and Spain at this time. Likewise, Euse-
bius claims that Maximinus Daia’s portraits were destroyed ‘in every city’
(κατὰ πα̃σαν πóλιν, Hist. eccl. 9.11). Ancient authors also tended to focus
on the destruction of portraits and statues as the manifestations of political
memory that were most charismatic, as well as most intimately connected
to the faces and bodies of those they represented.44 The removal, reloca-
tion, warehousing, or careful recarving of statues, all of which were very
common in Late Antiquity, rarely get a mention.45 Less dramatic actions
taken against epigraphic dedications—the key form of evidence used in
this book—also tend to be passed over in these accounts.
Ancient writers are frequently cryptic about who initiated such attacks
or who precisely was responsible for carrying them out. They tend to
use passive verbs, describing the action of tearing down images or statues
without indicating who was actually doing it.46 This lack of specifica-
tion creates the impression that these are the deeds of an abstract general
public, a manifestation of the people’s hatred towards the fallen ruler.
Consequently, accounts of these practices in the fourth century should
not be seen in isolation, but as part of a much longer discourse which

44 See Kajava (1995: 202–203) and Stewart (1999: 162).

45 An exception is Lactantius’ account of the iconoclasm inflicted on Diocletian and
Maximian in De mort. pers. 42.1, where he claims their images were ‘taken down’ or
‘removed’ (deponere). However, he also uses verbs which imply more aggressive actions,
such as ‘dragged down’ (detrahere) or ‘torn down’ (revellere). For statues as valuable civic
assets, which tended to be relocated and recycled, processes carefully controlled by local
authorities, see Curran (1994: 46–58), Smith (2007), and Leone (2013: 139–144).
46 For example, detrahebantur, deponebantur, revellebantur in Lactant. De mort. pers.
42.1; ·ιπτoÚμεναι, συνετρίβoντo in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 9.11.2.
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

linked these disgrace-inducing activities to tyrannical and failed regimes.

For example, Eusebius’ vivid account of the destruction of Maximinus
Daia’s portraits, where the mob pulls down, smashes, defaces, and mocks
his images, has literary parallels from earlier in the Principate. In his
panegyric to Trajan, Pliny the Younger described the Roman public glee-
fully participating in the wholesale destruction of Domitian’s portraits,
smashing the deposed emperor’s likenesses as though they were inflicting
damage and pain on the emperor himself (Plin. Pan. 53.4.11). The fact
that in both cases these descriptions of body and effigy destruction form
part of accounts which champion the victims’ successors should immedi-
ately raise suspicions about their accuracy. This is compounded by the fact
that there is little archaeological evidence that Domitian’s portraits were
intentionally mutilated. More often they appear to have been warehoused
or carefully recarved into images of other emperors.47
We need to differentiate clearly between political iconoclasm as a
historical occurrence and political iconoclasm as an imagined process.
Take, for example, the so-called Riot of the Statues of 387, where the
imposition of a new tax levy in Antioch resulted in an outbreak of urban
violence where the images of the emperor Theodosius I and his family
were torn down, dragged, and abused. The event and its consequences
were widely discussed at the time, including by John Chrysostom and
Libanius, both eyewitnesses with different agendas and perspectives.48 By
contrast, we have the panegyric of 321, in which Nazarius accuses Maxen-
tius of having attacked the portraits of Constantine. In this case, the
orator was delivering a speech in praise of the emperor who had defeated
Maxentius, and uses this allegation to reinforce a portrait of Maxentius
as a ruler who had been prone to outbursts of uncontrollable rage, who
had exhibited impiety and disrespect to his imperial colleagues, and who
therefore deserved to be deposed.49 This finds parallels in other accounts,
such as Lactantius’ description of the emperor Galerius’ furor (rage) when
sent the imago of the newly-elevated Constantine. Lactantius envisages a
scenario where Galerius was so enraged by this gesture that he almost

47 Portraits of Domitian tended to be recarved into his successors, Nerva and Trajan,
or his predecessor, Titus: Varner (2004: 113). See Kelly (2015: 228–229) for the impact
of Pliny’s background on this narrative of communal suffering and vengeance in the wake
of Domitian’s defeat.
48 See Chrys. De stat. and Lib. Or. 19.
49 See Laudani (2014: 181–183).
18 R. USHERWOOD

burned the portrait, along with the man who had brought it (25.1–2).
Neither Nazarius nor Lactantius are describing historical episodes. They
are generating literary constructions, a decade or more after the event,
designed to legitimise Constantine by presenting him as a victim, and his
former colleagues as unworthy to have shared imperial office with him.
This characterisation of the unfit emperor, unable to control his
passions and, as a consequence, carrying out acts of irrational ferocity
against the political memory of a rival, finds resonance with earlier tradi-
tions. The most conspicuous example is the campaign that Cassius Dio
claims Caracalla inflicted on his own brother Geta, including venting
his anger on the stones which had held the dead emperor’s statues
and melting down any coin which held his image.50 The prevalence of
such instances of political disgrace in both the literary and the mate-
rial record of the Severan period provides a valuable background against
which the fourth-century material of this book can be evaluated.51 For
example, in terms of agency, literary accounts of such campaigns often
present the emperor as the instigator and the army, particularly the Prae-
torians in Rome, as both the principal audience for declarations of a
rival’s disgrace and the instrument of the subsequent attack.52 It has
been argued that the physical evidence for Geta’s disgrace throughout
the empire, which is unprecedented in its thoroughness, indicates the
involvement of soldiers.53 Not only is this reflected in the practical reach
of the campaign’s implementation, it also aligns with literary evidence
which indicates the military’s deep-seated engagement with the ideology
of Geta as a disgraced figure, whose state of dishonour was intrinsically
linked to the survival and well-being of the ruling emperor, Caracalla.
Evidently, careful attention needs to be paid to the circumstances
surrounding such literary accounts of iconoclasm and political disgrace.

50 Dio 78.12.6. See also Herodian 4.4–6, and SHA M. Ant. 3.5.
51 Krüpe (2011) provides an especially comprehensive study of the condemnation of
Geta against the backdrop of earlier practices.
52 Immediately after his assassination of Geta, Caracalla is said to have gone directly
to the camp of the Praetorian guards to give his account and secure their support, and
secured the backing of the Senate only afterwards (Herodian 4.4.4–5; Dio 78.3; SHA M.
Ant. 2). Also see the Historia Augusta’s description of Elagabalus sending men to smear
mud on his young rival Alexander Severus’ statue bases in the Praetorian Camp (SHA
Heliogab. 13).
53 Varner (2004: 171).
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

Far from a faithful description of real events, such stories were often
designed to fulfil wider ideological or narrative purposes within an
author’s work. As we will now see, nowhere is this more applicable than
in the case of Christian discourse of the early fourth century.

Political Disgrace in Christian Discourse

Lactantius’ On the Deaths of the Persecutors and Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical
History and Life of Constantine provide the most contemporary and
extensive literary accounts of the tetrarchic and Constantinian periods.
Their polemical nature is generally recognised in modern scholarship, as
is the effect that this tone has had on our perception of Constantine,
particularly his rise and consolidation of imperial power, his relationship
with other emperors, and his attitude towards Christianity.54 However,
the impact which our reliance on these sources has had on our percep-
tion of political disgrace in the period this book examines is an issue which
needs addressing.
Both authors provide vivid accounts of the destruction of impe-
rial images: of Diocletian in Lactantius; Maximian in Lactantius and in
Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine; and Maximinus
Daia in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History.55 Some modern commentators
have used these passages as proof of historical occurrences and for the
continued existence of damnatio memoriae in this period.56 However, it
is rare that adequate consideration is given to the ways in which these
episodes were shaped by their authors’ identities and intentions. The
idea that material obliteration and disgrace were the God-sent punish-
ments inflicted on emperors who had persecuted the Christians is found
throughout the writings of Lactantius and Eusebius. Both engaged in
these established discourses, appropriating and adapting tropes to achieve
their own ideological aims in the new religious and political environment
of the aftermath of the Great Persecution.

54 See, for example, Barnes (1981; 2011: 2–6).

55 Lactant. De mort. pers. 42, Euseb. Hist. eccl. 8.13.15, Vit. Const. 1.47.1, Hist. Eccl.
9.11.2.
56 For example, Barnes (1981: 41), Odahl (2010: 98), Harries (2012: 115), Lenski
(2012: 68), and Killerich (2014: 64), all reference Lactantius De mort. pers. 42 as evidence
for Constantine’s damnatio memoriae of his father-in-law Maximian.
20 R. USHERWOOD

The On the Deaths of the Persecutors is Lactantius’ own monument

to the political disgrace which he saw operating in the past and present.
Beginning his account at the dawn of imperial persecutions of the Chris-
tians, Lactantius describes a sequence of emperors who suffered various
forms of posthumous dishonour: Nero who simply vanished (2.7); Domi-
tian whose name was erased beyond memory (3.3); Decius whose body
was left on the battlefield as carrion for wild beasts and birds (4.3); Vale-
rian who was skinned and hung in a Persian temple as an enduring trophy
of Roman failure (5.6). He then adds the emperors of recent years to
this pattern of imperial disgrace. A prolonged and graphic description of
Galerius rotting away in agony on the eve of his vicennalia, the twentieth
anniversary of his rule (33). Maximinus Daia, whose excruciating death
mirrors the tortures he had inflicted on the martyrs he created (49). The
once great emperor Diocletian, who starves himself to death in his lonely
retirement palace, having been the first emperor to watch, powerless, as
his honorific images were torn down before his own eyes (42).
This pattern is echoed in the writings of Eusebius. His account of the
public dishonour inflicted upon Maximinus Daia’s statues comes directly
after his description of the emperor’s illness and death, where the defeated
ruler’s body wastes away, disintegrating whilst he is still alive until it
becomes nothing more than a ‘tomb for his soul’ (τάϕoν αÙτù τÁς
ψυχÁς, Hist. eccl. 9.13). So after literally—corporeally—disappearing,
the final shame for Maximinus is the posthumous destruction of all his
honorific images. The result is the state of total dishonour which Euse-
bius claims was the ultimate punishment for all imperial persecutors: ‘even
their names were forgotten; their portraits and tributes received deserved
disgrace’.57
Lactantius makes his narrative intentions clear in the introduction of
his pamphlet, declaring his goal to recount and publicise the fates of the
persecuting emperors ‘so that all who were far away and all who are yet to
come will know the extent to which God revealed his virtue and majesty
in the destruction and obliteration of the enemies of His name’.58 This
is an excellent example of the paradox which lies at the heart of acts

57 Hist. eccl. 10.9.5 (after Williamson trans.): oÙδ μšχρις ÑνÒματoς μνημoνευóμενoι,
γραϕαί τε αÙτîν καὶ τιμαὶ τὴν ¢ξίαν α„σχνην
´ ¢πελάμβανoν.
58 Lactant. De mort. pers. 1.8 (trans. Creed): ut omnes qui procul remoti fuerunt vel qui
postea futuri sunt scirent quatenus virtutem ac maiestatem suam in extinguendis delendisque
nominis sui hostibus deus ostenderit.
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

which target memory and commemoration. Far from creating a state of

oblivion or amnesia, Lactantius is evoking the topos of the reversal of
fortune, illustrating how these individuals who had risen so high had
themselves suffered fates worse than death for their crimes against the
Christians.59 The grisly ends suffered by these persecuting emperors are
the ironic reversal of the war which they had waged against the church:
in striving to destroy (extinguere) and obliterate (delere) all traces of
Christianity, they instead created the conditions of their own destruction
and obliteration. Hence Lactantius’ conclusion of his pamphlet, where
he triumphantly declares that God’s judgement has manifested in his
punishment of Diocletian and Maximian: ‘truly, the Lord has obliter-
ated them, and erased them from the earth’ (nempe delevit ea dominus
et erasit de terra, 52.3). His choice of wording is significant: deleo, to
expunge, delete, undo; and erado, the verb used to describe the action
of scraping or striking something away.60 Like a name on an inscription,
these emperors have literally been scraped off the face of the earth for
their crimes against the church.
It is important to recognise that the worldview found in Lactantius
and Eusebius was not universal. For them, imperial success or failure was
defined almost exclusively by an emperor’s attitude and behaviour towards
Christianity.61 Dishonour, image-destruction, and body destruction all
had their parts to play in the creation and propagation of this rhetor-
ical construction. By contrast, such themes rarely feature in non-Christian
writings of the fourth century.

Central Direction and Local Action

A key characteristic of the damnatio memoriae myth is that the phrase
describes a static or standardised legal punishment which could be
deployed against emperors or other prominent individuals. In reality,
there was no formal way to ‘carry out a damnatio memoriae’, ‘declare’
or ‘proclaim a damnatio memoriae’, ‘perform damnatio memoriae’, or

59 See Stewart (1999: 180–181; 2003: 276–277).

60 OCD § F. 1–4 508, 615.
61 For example, Lactantius’ claim that Diocletian’s reign was prosperous for almost
20 years, until the moment he turned against the Christians (De mort. pers. 9.11). See
Søby Christensen (1980: 17) and Humphries (2006: 189).
22 R. USHERWOOD

‘abolish the memory’ of an individual in the Roman world.62 Recent

studies have stepped away from these definitions of damnatio memoriae as
an official legal penalty, connected in particular with the crimes of perdu-
ellio or maiestas (treason).63 As both Flower and Hedrick have stressed,
the phrase should not be taken to indicate either a static judicial concept
or the triggering of a formal procedure.64 Rather, the penalties associated
with disgrace formed a loose repertoire of measures which targeted polit-
ical memory in different ways, and could be employed alone or in various
combinations depending on the conditions or requirements of particular
cases.
That being said, the issuing and dissemination of imperial edicts would
have played a fundamental role in communicating an individual’s fall from
power to the empire at large.65 In some cases, these laws could stipulate
certain measures designed to influence familial or public memorialisation.
The most prominent example of this is found in the Senatus Consultum
de Cn. Pisone Patre, six bronze copies of which were discovered in the
late 1980s in the region of ancient Baetica. Issued in 20 CE, this sena-
torial decree outlines the punishments to be inflicted on the disgraced
aristocrat Piso. Among other penalties designed to target Piso’s reputa-
tion and posthumous commemoration, such as a ban on the mourning of
his death and the prohibition of the use of his portrait mask at family
funerals, it orders that his statuae (statues) and imagines (likenesses)
are to be removed from wherever they are on display.66 A comparable

62 For example: ‘carry out’: Odahl (2010: 99) (on the emperor Maximian); ‘declare’:
McFadden (2015: 29–30) (on the emperor Maximian); ‘proclaim’: Burgess (2008: 42)
(on the Caesar Dalmatius and Julius Constantius); ‘perform’: Drake (2000: 69) (on the
Senate’s right to enforce ‘memory sanctions’); ‘abolish the memory’: Barnes (1993:
51–52) (on Constans and Constantius II’s treatment of the legacy of their brother
Constantine II).
63 See Mustakallio (1994) for these early Roman measures against traitors, as well as
the refutation (15) that they should be directly connected with later measures targeting
political memory.
64 Flower (1998: 155–156) and Hedrick (2000: 93).
65 For the procedures of issuing and circulating legislation in the Roman empire, and
factors which could affect promulgation at a local level, see Ando (2000: 109–122),
Matthews (2000: 168–172), Corcoran (2000: 239–250), Rowe (2014: 229–230), and
Schmidt-Hofner (2015) (esp. 71 n.116).
66 Ban on mourning: lines 73–74. Ban on portrait mask: lines 76–82. Removal of
statues and imagines: lines 75–76. See Bodel (1999b: 260–261) and Flower (1998: 23–31,
56–59).
 1 INTRODUCTION 23

example, from almost four hundred years later, can be found in a law
of 399, preserved in the Theodosian Code, in which the emperors Arca-
dius and Honorius specify the penalties to be inflicted on the disgraced
eunuch and former consul Eutropius. These have clear resonances with
those imposed on Piso, including measures such as the confiscation of
Eutropius’ property, and then a long and expansive specification that all
of his statues (statuas ) and likenesses (simulacra), made out of any mate-
rial and in both public and private places, should be removed ‘lest they
pollute they eyes of those who look at such images’.67
The S.C. de Cn. Pisone ends with lengthy provisions for the law’s
dissemination, stipulating that it should be read out publicly and inscribed
in bronze, then hung in ‘the most frequented city of every province and
in the most frequented place of that city’, as well as next to the standards
(signa) at the heart of the legionary winter quarters.68 These provisions
illustrate the importance of—and difficulties inherent in—communicating
and enforcing such instructions. It could take weeks for such an edict
to reach parts of the empire. Even then, its implementation at a local
level was not guaranteed, since it was dependent on the enthusiasm and
diligence of local governors, or those further down the administrative
hierarchy, such as municipal officers.69
Vittinghoff had already raised this issue of the gulf between what
was instructed and the extent to which these instructions were actually
enforced, particularly in the regulation of private space.70 He argued that,
although laws or literary texts might stipulate the complete eradication of
traces of an individual, contemporary Romans must have been well aware
that this was impossible. The intention was not to completely suppress
recollection of the condemned, but to make a public and symbolic state-
ment which reframed their memory, branding with infamy what had

67 Cod. Theod. 9.40.17 (after Pharr trans.): omnes statuas, omnia simulacra, tam ex aere
quam ex marmore seu ex fucis quam ex quamcumque materia quae apta est effingendis,
ab omnibus civitatibus oppidis locisque privatis ac publicis praecipimus aboleri, ne tamquam
nota nostri saeculi obtutus polluat intuentum.
68 Lines 169–172. By contrast, the surviving excerpt of the Eutropius law contains
no provisions for its dissemination, though it was likely this was cut when the law was
incorporated into the Theodosian Code. See Matthews (2000: 168) and Schmidt-Hofner
(2015: 71–72) for the abbreviation of laws when they were compiled in the Code.
69 Almost all known copies of the S. C. de Cn. Pisone were set up by the governor of
Baetica: Eck et al. (1996: 190–191) and Flower (1998: 157; 2000: 60).
70 Vittinghoff (1936: 23–33).
24 R. USHERWOOD

formerly been honoured and respected, and making their disgrace serve as
a warning against similar transgressions.71 The convoluted and venomous
language of the edict condemning Eutropius, especially the use of terms
that denoted impurity or disease (sordes, ‘filthy’; contagione foedans, ‘pol-
luting by contact’), illustrates that this law was not concerned with the
literal erasing of Eutropius, but instead with publicising the extent and
nature of his political disgrace.72 Both the Eutropius and Piso edicts were
declarations of the emperors’ and Senate’s authority to regulate the lega-
cies of prominent individuals. When interpreting the material evidence for
such attacks, it is crucial to bear in mind that the actual implementation
of these laws was of secondary importance to the statement made by their
pronouncement.73
No law stipulating penalties targeting the name, images, or remem-
brance of an individual survives from the period examined in this book.
However, of the thirteen laws preserved in the Theodosian Code which
abolish the legislation of defeated imperial rivals (Cod. Theod. 15.14), five
date from the first half of the fourth century, addressing the defeats of
Maxentius, Licinius, and Magnentius.74 Gathered together under the title
De infirmandis his quae sub tyrannis aut barbaris gesta sunt (‘concerning
the annulment of things carried out under the tyrants and barbarians’),
this group of laws was issued across a hundred years, from the defeat
of Maxentius in 312 to the usurpation of Heraclianus against Hono-
rius in 413. They address issues such as whether a defeated rival’s edicts,
rescripts, gifts, or administrative appointments should remain valid, and
whether private civil agreements executed during this time, such as wills
or slave manumissions, should be honoured. Whilst they tend to be inflex-
ible in their invalidation of a rival’s regulations, condemning them to be
removed from legal records, on the whole they demonstrate an appreci-
ation of the chaos that would ensue if all legal activities from the ‘time
of tyranny’ (tyrannicum tempus ) were nullified. A law of 395, issued by

71 Bodel (1999a: 52–53), Hedrick (2000: 107–112), and Flower (2006: 9).
72 For the use of language denoting impurity, especially in political contexts, see Lennon
(2014).
73 See Schmidt-Hofner (2015) for the argument that fourth-century imperial legislation
prioritised communicative and ideological concerns over pragmatic ones.
74 Maxentius: Cod. Theod. 15.14.3–4 (for the re-dating of these laws from 326 to
313, see Corcoran [1993: 99], Dillon [2012: 91–93]); Licinius: Cod. Theod. 15.14.1–2;
Magnentius: Cod. Theod. 15.14.5.
 1 INTRODUCTION 25

Arcadius and Honorius in the aftermath of the defeat of Eugenius, illus-

trates this tension between rhetoric and pragmatism. The edict ends with
a flourish, ordering that ‘the very time of tyranny shall be considered as
though it had not been’ (tempus vero ipsum, ac si non fuerit, aestimetur,
Cod. Theod. 15.14.9), but only after specifying at great length all the
different forms of legal activities which should remain valid.
As in the case of the edicts targeting Piso and Eutropius, the proclama-
tion and dissemination of these laws were designed to make a rhetorical
statement, not to eradicate all traces of these opponents. All thirteen
use the term tyrannus in reference to the overthrown rival. Neri has
suggested that tyrannus / τραννoς´ was devised by Constantine and
Licinius together during their co-emperorship as a common catchword to
discredit their opponents, Maxentius and Maximinus Daia. The term then
evolved over the course of the fourth century, developing a closer affinity
to political illegitimacy until it came to denote a ‘usurper’—someone who
had illegally seized imperial power—in a narrower, more literal sense.75
However, as Mark Humphries has argued, this distinction between a
usurper/tyrannus and a legitimate emperor was not a question of the
validity of the ruler’s accession, but whoever had, through their military
success, been left to define the nature of a civil conflict.76 The use of
tyrannus in these laws is a public declaration of this victor’s preroga-
tive, one which, as we will see particularly in the cases of Licinius and
Magnentius, was mirrored and reaffirmed in other media, such as public
oratory and dedicatory inscriptions. Along with related catchwords, such
as ‘enemy’ (πoλšμιoς; ™χθρóς; inimicus; hostis ), this terminology played
a central role in repackaging emperors during and in the aftermath of
their downfalls. As I argue in the case studies of this book, these catch-
words surrounded these figures with an aura of disgrace. At a local level,
this could then be interpreted as validation or encouragement for attacks
on their political memory.
Literary accounts provide an insight into the role which imperial edicts
could play in facilitating such behaviour. For example, in his narrative
of the emperor Maximinus Daia’s downfall at the hands of Licinius in
313, Eusebius describes Licinius and Constantine posting in the public

75 Neri (1997: 74–75). Grünewald (1990: 64–71) has alternatively argued that it was
specifically Constantine who introduced tyrannus as a political catchword after the defeat
of Maxentius in 312. See also Barnes (1996) and Omissi (2018: 30).
76 Humphries (2008: 85–87).
26 R. USHERWOOD

notices that Daia was ‘the common enemy of all’ (κoινòς ¢π£ντων
πoλšμιoς) and a ‘tyrant’ (τραννoς).
´ Though nothing is said about the
law containing specifications targeting Daia’s images, Eusebius claims that
its posting incited a violent campaign of iconoclasm against the honorific
dedications of both him and his children ‘in every city’ (κατὰ πα̃σαν
πóλιν). Their portraits were thrown down or blackened with paint, and
his statues were smashed and mocked by the crowds (Hist. eccl. 9.11).
Accounts such as this further underscore the communal nature of political
disgrace. Through their selective re-definition of the recent past, impe-
rial edicts created the conditions to maintain the status quo of both the
present and the future: the tyrannus was condemned in isolation, and
the rest of the community conformed to and enforced this new political
reality.
In the timeframe which this book covers, the most unambiguous state-
ment linking image-destruction to the directives of an emperor comes
from the On the Deaths of the Persecutors of the Christian apologist
Lactantius. Lactantius claims that the fall of Maximian was followed by
Constantine issuing a iussus —command or decree—which instructed that
the disgraced emperor’s imagines were to be torn down (42.1). The
circumstances surrounding this episode are discussed in full in chapter
two.

The Materiality of Disgrace

Roman concepts of dishonour and disgrace were centred on their phys-
ical expression, be they actions against portraits, statues, inscribed names,
coins, or even the bodies of victims. The material evidence for these prac-
tices which has survived the considerable passage of time is scattered and
inconsistent. Nevertheless, its analysis opens up valuable avenues for our
understanding of political change as a process that was socially, cultur-
ally, and geographically dispersed and complex. Many of the forms of
evidence drawn upon in this book are similar to those used in previous
studies of Roman disgrace. However, modes of political commemoration
had changed by the fourth century, and these developments pose new
problems but also present fresh opportunities. Some sources of evidence,
such as portraiture, statues, and coins, become a less useful gauge of these
activities in the later empire. Nevertheless, this absence can be filled by the
rich and varied epigraphic corpus.
 1 INTRODUCTION 27

Portraits
In his monograph investigating the effects of political disgrace on imperial
portraiture, Eric Varner identifies three patterns of response: deliberate
mutilation, with the portrait either being disposed of, or alternatively left
on display as an enduring mark of shame; warehousing, when portraits
were removed from view; and recarving, either in the immediate after-
math of an emperor’s downfall or considerably later, after the portrait
had remained in storage for many years.77
However, this approach encounters obstacles when applied to the
material surviving from Late Antiquity. The many emperors of the
Tetrarchy and the Constantinian dynasty were intentionally designed to
be virtually indistinguishable in order to project a sense of political and
dynastic unity.78 Such portraits, now out of context and separated from
their statue bases, can only be identified in general terms as representing
‘a Tetrarch’ or ‘a Constantinian emperor’. In the absence of an inscrip-
tion or label identifying a specific emperor, it must have been equally hard
for ancient audiences to single out a disgraced emperor from any other.
An additional factor is how prolific the recarving of portraits had become
by the fourth century, so reuse cannot be interpreted as an intentional
attack on the portrait’s original subject.79 As Bauer has concluded, the
loss of individualism in imperial portraiture, combined with changes in
attitudes to and practices of reuse, must have had a significant impact
on curbing politically-motivated portrait destruction in later periods.80
As a consequence, Licinius is this book’s only case study which considers
portraiture, since he is one of the only examples of an emperor in this
period who sought stylistic distinction from his imperial colleague and
rival, Constantine.

77 Varner (2000a: 11–10; 2004: 2–9, 44–45, 84–85, 154–155, 198–199).

78 See, for example, L’Orange (1984: 3–10, 40–44) for the ideology of similitudo in
tetrarchic, Licinian, and Constantinian portraiture, and Kleiner (1992: 400–404) for the
obstacles to identifying specific emperors in tetrarchic portraiture.
79 Varner (2004) tends to identify early fourth-century sculptural reuse as ideological
rather than economical (see, for example, p. 223). For recarving, see Kinney (1997),
Galinsky (2008), Prusac (2011), and Witschel (2015: 334–335).
80 Bauer (1996: 346–348) and Stewart (1999: 170).
28 R. USHERWOOD

We must also bear in mind that, though we focus on the marble

sculpture that survives, this represents only a fraction of imperial repre-
sentations in ancient contexts. Though marble statues were vulnerable
to later reuse as building materials or to be burnt to make lime, they
survive in far greater numbers than bronze statues, which tended to
be melted down and are now rare survivals.81 We know from literary
sources that imperial images could be wooden statues, or images painted
on panels.82 Rare examples of such painted images survive, such as the
famous tondo of the Severan family from Fayum in Egypt where Geta’s
face is erased, or the tetrarchic frescoes from the temple of Luxor, which
are discussed in chapter two. Imperial images could be smaller objects in
precious materials, which, though diminutive, could possess considerable
symbolic power as the focus for demonstrations of loyalty, especially if
they were used in contexts such as on military standards.83 We know
from depictions on ivory diptychs that the imperial image could also
feature prominently on ceremonial consular robes, or as embellishments
on furniture.84

Coinage
Since the creation of coins was an integral part of an emperor’s authority,
some have identified attacks on them as an important way of targeting a
ruler’s claims to legitimacy.85 Similar to the alterations made to inscrip-
tions, surviving examples of altered coins demonstrate a lack of definitive
rules as to how such modifications could be carried out, with multiple
techniques attested.86 In general, these can be divided into official alter-
ations, such as mints countermarking names and images, and more

81 Coates-Stephens (2007).
82 See, for example, Julian Letter to a Priest 294C, which talks of the emperor being
embodied in statues in wood, stone, and bronze (τὰς βασιλικὰς ε„κÒνας ξÚλα καὶ λ…θoν
καὶ χαλκòν).
83 See Webster (1979: 138) and Fishwick (1988: 400).
84 For the ubiquity of the imperial image in different media, as well as its significance
and the agents involved, see Ando (2000: 232–239) and Hekster (2015: 30–38).
85 Crawford (1983: 55–56) and Varner (2000b: 45).
86 Hostein (2004: 223).
 1 INTRODUCTION 29

sporadic, informal, and isolated acts of vandalism, found on a very small

number of surviving examples.87
Some ancient accounts describe centrally organised campaigns to wipe
out all traces of an emperor’s coinage by recalling and melting down his
issues. Cassius Dio claims that the Senate ordered this for the bronze
coins of Caligula, and that, a hundred and seventy years later, Cara-
calla did the same to Geta as part of a comprehensive series of measures
designed to obliterate his brother’s physical memory.88 There is one
example of comparable behaviour from the period this book examines.
Peter the Patrician, writing in the mid-sixth century but drawing upon
earlier sources, claims that the emperor Licinius melted down gold victory
coins of Constantine on the eve of their final conflict, an advertisement
of his refusal to recognise his colleague’s military successes.89 Literary
sources generally present such instances as extreme and unreasonable,
driven by excessive hatred or jealousy. However, there may be truths to
such claims. For example, it has been suggested that a law of Constan-
tius II which banned larger coins was designed to take his opponent
Magnentius’ issues out of circulation.90 Moreover, a meticulous study has
demonstrated that, later in the fourth century, Theodosius I recalled the
coinage of his rival Magnus Maximus.91
Though mutilated coins are not discussed in this book, numismatic
evidence plays an important part in each of its four case studies. Coins
provide valuable insights into the messages which imperial courts chose
to communicate, and the alliances which they formed with one another.92
During the tetrarchic period, emperors practised reciprocal minting,
striking coins in the names of all emperors and thus emphasising empire-
wide political unity, a practice also found in honorific inscriptions.93
This continued during the dissolution of the Tetrarchy, though emperors

87 Crespo Pérez (2014: 119–138).

88 Cass. Dio. 60.22.3, 77.12.6.
89 Peter the Patrician ES 187, F 298 (Summer 323 CE), Banchich (2015: 143). For
further discussion of the significance of this passage in the context of time and other
references to coin-mutilation, see Wienand (2012: 342–350).
90 Cod. Theod. 9.23.1, Abdy (2012: 596–597).
91 Baldus (1984) and Leppin (2003: 112).
92 For coinage and imperial agency, see Rowan (2012: 19–31) and Noreña (2011:
22–23).
93 Rees (2004: 73).
30 R. USHERWOOD

could deviate from this custom, using coin-minting as a way of severing

links with a rival or even rejecting his authority altogether. As will be
demonstrated particularly in the cases of Licinius and Magnentius, coin
iconography and minting patterns can be used to trace the ebbs and flows
of this recognition and repudiation.

The Power of the Imperial Name

Our modern perceptions of iconoclasm find their roots in the Refor-
mation of the sixteenth century, and before that the eighth-century
Byzantine controversy from which the term ‘the breaking of images’
derives; as a consequence, it has been argued that we tend to accord
images greater power and significance than written or inscribed words
or names.94 As we have seen, ancient literary accounts of the measures
associated with political disgrace likewise tend to focus on portraits,
statues, and images. In the Roman world, both religiously- and politically-
motivated iconoclasm depended on sculptures and images being more
than simple objects, since these representations were seen to embody
the numen—divine essence—of what they represented, whether a ruler
or a god.95 As in Near Eastern cultures, these images were intrinsically
connected to their prototype, to the extent that any hostility inflicted on
an image was seen to carry over to the represented individual: ‘a kind of
magical transference’, as David Freedberg has described it in his broad
study of iconoclasm.96
This is a conspicuous feature of literary accounts of iconoclasm, such as
Pliny the Younger’s description of the destruction of Domitian’s portraits,
which is presented as an act of communal surrogate corpse abuse: they
were struck ‘as if blood and pain would follow every blow’ (ut si singulos
ictus sanguis dolorque sequeretur: Plin. Pan. 52.4).97 In the empire, the
maltreatment of, or misbehaviour in the vicinity of, imperial images could

94 May (2012: 3).

95 For the destruction of images of deities in Late Antiquity and their relationship to
political iconoclasm, see Stewart (1999: 178; 2003: 296), Hannestad (1999: 183–184),
Sauer (2003), Trombley (2008), and Kristensen (2009, 2010, 2013, 2015).
96 Freedberg (1989: 392).
97 See Varner (2004: 2–4; 2005).
Another random document with
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and the several answers which were returned by each of the
martyrs. I copy from Baronius the most important of these. They
were arrested while they were celebrating the Lord’s sacrament
according to custom.[514] The following is the charge on which they
were arrested: They had celebrated the Collectam Dominicam
against the command of the emperors.[515] The proconsul asked the
first whether he had celebrated the Collectam, and he replied that he
was a Christian, and had done this.[516] Another says, “I have not
only been in the Collecta, but I have celebrated the Dominicum with
the brethren because I am a Christian.”[517] Another says we have
celebrated the Dominicum, because the Dominicum cannot be
neglected.[518] Another said that the Collecta was made (or
observed) at his house.[519] The proconsul questioning again one of
those already examined, received this answer: “The Dominicum
cannot be disregarded, the law so commands.”[520] When one was
asked whether the Collecta was made (or observed) at his house, he
answered, “In my house we have celebrated the Dominicum.” He
added, “Without the Dominicum we cannot be,” or live.[521] To
another, the proconsul said that he did not wish to know whether he
was a Christian, but whether he participated in the Collecta. His reply
was: “As if one could be a Christian without the Dominicum, or as if
the Dominicum can be celebrated without the Christian.”[522] And he
said further to the proconsul: “We have observed the Collecta most
sacredly; we have always convened in the Dominicum for reading
the Lord’s word.”[523] Another said: “I have been in [literally, have
made] the Collecta with my brethren, I have celebrated the
Dominicum.”[524] After him another proclaimed the Dominicum to be
the hope and safety of the Christian, and when tortured as the
others, he exclaimed, ”I have celebrated the Dominicum with a
devoted heart, and with my brethren I have made the Collecta
because I am a Christian.”[525] When the proconsul again asked one
of these whether he had conducted the Dominicum, he replied that
he had because Christ was his Saviour.[526]
 I have thus given the substance of this famous examination, and
have set before the reader the references therein made to the
Dominicum. It is to be observed that Collecta is used as another
name for Dominicum. Now does Baronius use either of these words
to signify Lord’s day? It so happens that he has defined these words
with direct reference to this very case no less than seven times. Now
let us read these seven definitions:—
When Baronius records the first question addressed to these
martyrs, he there defines these words as follows: “By the words
Collectam, Collectionem, and Dominicum, the author always
understands the sacrifice of the Mass.”[527] After recording the words
of that martyr who said that the law commanded the observance of
the Dominicum, Baronius defines his statement thus: “Evidently the
Christian law concerning the Dominicum, no doubt about celebrating
the sacrifice.”[528] Baronius, by the Romish words sacrifice and Mass
refers to the celebration of the Lord’s supper by these martyrs. At the
conclusion of the examination, he again defines the celebration of
the Dominicum. He says: “It has been shown above in relating these
things that the Christians were moved, even in the time of severe
persecution, to celebrate the Dominicum. Evidently, as we have
declared elsewhere in many places, it was a sacrifice without
bloodshed, and of divine appointment.”[529] He presently defines
Dominicum again, saying, “Though it is a fact that the same
expression was employed at times with reference to the temple of
God, yet since all the churches upon the earth have united in this
matter, and from other things related above, it has been sufficiently
shown concerning the celebration of the Dominicum, that only the
sacrifice of the Mass can be understood.”[530] Observe this last
statement. He says though the word has been employed to
designate the temple of the Lord, yet in the things here related it can
only signify the sacrifice of the Mass. These testimonies are
exceedingly explicit. But Baronius has not yet finished. In the index
to Tome 3, he explains these words again with direct reference to
this very martyrdom. Thus under Collecta is this statement: “The
Collecta, the Dominicum, the Mass, the same [a. d.] 303, xxxix.”[531]
Under Missa: “The Mass is the same as the Collecta, or Dominicum
[a. d.], 303, xxxix.”[532] Under Dominicum: “To celebrate the
Dominicum is the same as to conduct the Mass [a. d.], 303, xxxix.;
xlix.; li.”[533]
It is not possible to mistake the meaning of Baronius. He says that
Dominicum signifies the Mass! The celebration of the supper by
these martyrs was doubtless very different from the pompous
ceremony which the church of Rome now observes under the name
of Mass. But it was the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, concerning
which they were tested, and for observing which they were put to a
cruel death. The word Dominicum signifies “the sacred mysteries,”
as Ruinart defines it; and Baronius, in seven times affirming this
definition, though acknowledging that it has sometimes been used to
signify temple of God, plainly declares that in this record, it can have
no other meaning than that service which the Romanists call the
sacrifice of the Mass. Gilfillan had read all this, yet he dares to quote
Baronius as saying that these martyrs were tested by the question,
“Have you kept Lord’s day?” He could not but know that he was
writing a direct falsehood; but he thought the honor of God, and the
advancement of the cause of truth, demanded this act at his hands.
Before Gilfillan wrote his work, Domville had called attention to the
fact that the sentence, “Dominicum servasti?” does not occur in the
Acta Martyrum, a different verb being used every time. But this is the
popular form of this question, and must not be given up. So Gilfillan
declares that Baronius uses it in his record of the martyrdoms in a. d.
303. But we have cited the different forms of question recorded by
Baronius, and find them to be precisely the same with those of the
Acta Martyrum. “Dominicum servasti?” does not occur in that
historian, and Gilfillan, in stating that it does, is guilty of untruth. This,
however, is comparatively unimportant. But for asserting that
Baronius speaks of Lord’s day under the name of Dominicum,
Gilfillan stands convicted of inexcusable falsehood in matters of
serious importance.
 CHAPTER XVI.
ORIGIN OF FIRST-DAY OBSERVANCE.

Sunday a heathen festival from remote antiquity—Origin of the name—

Reasons which induced the leaders of the church to adopt this festival
—It was the day generally observed by the Gentiles in the first
centuries of the Christian era—To have taken a different day would
have been exceedingly inconvenient—They hoped to facilitate the
conversion of the Gentiles by keeping the same day that they
observed—Three voluntary weekly festivals in the church in memory
of the Redeemer—Sunday soon elevated above the other two—
Justin Martyr—Sunday observance first found in the church of Rome
—Irenæus—First act of papal usurpation was in behalf of Sunday—
Tertullian—Earliest trace of abstinence from labor on Sunday—
General statement of facts—The Roman church made its first great
attack upon the Sabbath by turning it into a fast.
The festival of Sunday is more ancient than the Christian religion,
its origin being lost in remote antiquity. It did not originate, however,
from any divine command nor from piety toward God: on the
contrary, it was set apart as a sacred day by the heathen world in
honor of their chief god, the sun. It is from this fact that the first day
of the week has obtained the name of Sunday, a name by which it is
known in many languages. Webster thus defines the word:—

“Sunday; so called because this day was anciently

dedicated to the sun or to its worship. The first day of the
week; the Christian Sabbath; a day consecrated to rest from
secular employments, and to religious worship; the Lord’s
day.”

And Worcester, in his large dictionary, uses similar language:—

“Sunday; so named because anciently dedicated to the sun

or to its worship. The first day of the week; the Christian
 Sabbath, consecrated to rest from labor and to religious
worship; the Lord’s day.”

These lexicographers call Sunday the Christian Sabbath, etc.,

because in the general theological literature of our language, it is
thus designated, though never thus in the Bible. Lexicographers do
not undertake to settle theological questions, but simply to define
terms as currently used in a particular language. Though all the other
days of the week have heathen names, Sunday alone was a
conspicuous heathen festival in the days of the early church. The
North British Review, in a labored attempt to justify the observance
of Sunday by the Christian world, styles that day, “The wild solar
holiday [i. e., festival in honor of the sun] of all pagan times.”[534]
Verstegan says:—

“The most ancient Germans being pagans, and having

appropriated their first day of the week to the peculiar
adoration of the sun, whereof that day doth yet in our English
tongue retain the name of Sunday, and appropriated the next
day unto it unto the especial adoration of the moon, whereof it
yet retaineth with us, the name of Monday; they ordained the
next day to these most heavenly planets to the particular
adoration of their great reputed god, Tuisco, whereof we do
yet retain in our language the name of Tuesday.”[535]

The same author thus speaks concerning the idols of our Saxon
ancestors:—

“Of these, though they had many, yet seven among the rest
they especially appropriated unto the seven days of the
week.... Unto the day dedicated unto the especial adoration of
the idol of the sun, they gave the name of Sunday, as much
as to say the sun’s day or the day of the sun. This idol was
placed in a temple, and there adored and sacrificed unto, for
 that they believed that the sun in the firmament did with or in
this idol correspond and co-operate.”[536]

Jennings makes this adoration of the sun more ancient than the
deliverance of Israel from Egypt. For, in speaking of the time of that
deliverance, he speaks of the Gentiles as,

“The idolatrous nations who in honor to their chief god, the

sun, began their day at his rising.”[537]

He represents them also as setting apart Sunday in honor of the

same object of adoration:—

“The day which the heathens in general consecrated to the

worship and honor of their chief god, the sun, which,
according to our computation, was the first day of the
week.”[538]

The North British Review thus defends the introduction of this

ancient heathen festival into the Christian church:—

“That very day was the Sunday of their heathen neighbors

and respective countrymen; and patriotism gladly united with
expediency in making it at once their Lord’s day and their
Sabbath.... If the authority of the church is to be ignored
altogether by Protestants, there is no matter; because
opportunity and common expediency are surely argument
enough for so ceremonial a change as the mere day of the
week for the observance of the rest and holy convocation of
the Jewish Sabbath. That primitive church, in fact, was shut
up to the adoption of the Sunday, until it became established
and supreme, when it was too late to make another alteration;
and it was no irreverent nor undelightful thing to adopt it,
inasmuch as the first day of the week was their own high day
 at any rate; so that their compliance and civility were
rewarded by the redoubled sanctity of their quiet festival.”[539]

It would seem that something more potent than “patriotism” and

“expediency” would be requisite to transform this heathen festival
into the Christian Sabbath, or even to justify its introduction into the
Christian church. A further statement of the reasons which prompted
its introduction, and a brief notice of the earlier steps toward
transforming it into a Christian institution, will occupy the remainder
of this chapter. Chafie, a clergyman of the English Church, in 1652,
published a work in vindication of first-day observance, entitled, “The
Seventh-day Sabbath.” After showing the general observance of
Sunday by the heathen world in the early ages of the church, Chafie
thus states the reasons which forbid the Christians attempting to
keep any other day:—

“1. Because of the contempt, scorn, and derision they

thereby should be had in, among all the Gentiles with whom
they lived.... How grievous would be their taunts and
reproaches against the poor Christians living with them and
under their power for their new set sacred day, had the
Christians chosen any other than the Sunday.... 2. Most
Christians then were either servants or of the poorer sort of
people; and the Gentiles, most probably, would not give their
servants liberty to cease from working on any other set day
constantly, except on their Sunday.... 3. Because had they
assayed such a change it would have been but labor in vain;
... they could never have brought it to pass.”[540]

Thus it is seen that at the time when the early church began to
apostatize from God and to foster in its bosom human ordinances,
the heathen world—as they had long done—very generally observed
the first day of the week in honor of the sun. Many of the early
fathers of the church had been heathen philosophers. Unfortunately
they brought with them into the church many of their old notions and
principles. Particularly did it occur to them that by uniting with the
heathen in the day of weekly celebration they should greatly facilitate
their conversion. The reasons which induced the church to adopt the
ancient festival of the heathen as something made ready to hand,
are thus stated by Morer:—

“It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of this day

from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the
old Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial
of their veneration, dedicated this day to him. And we find by
the influence of their examples, other nations, and among
them the Jews themselves, doing him homage;[541] yet these
abuses did not hinder the fathers of the Christian church
simply to repeal, or altogether lay by, the day or its name, but
only to sanctify and improve both, as they did also the pagan
temples polluted before with idolatrous services, and other
instances wherein those good men were always tender to
work any other change than what was evidently necessary,
and in such things as were plainly inconsistent with the
Christian religion; so that Sunday being the day on which the
Gentiles solemnly adored that planet, and called it Sunday,
partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly in
respect to its divine body (as they conceived it), the Christians
thought fit to keep the same day and the same name of it, that
they might not appear causelessly peevish, and by that
means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles, and bring a
greater prejudice than might be otherwise taken against the
gospel.”[542]

In the time of Justin Martyr, Sunday was a weekly festival, widely

celebrated by the heathen in honor of their god, the sun. And so, in
presenting to the heathen emperor of Rome an “Apology” for his
brethren, Justin takes care to tell him thrice that the Christians held
their assemblies on this day of general observance.[543] Sunday
therefore makes its first appearance in the Christian church as an
institution identical in time with the weekly festival of the heathen,
and Justin, who first mentions this festival, had been a heathen
philosopher. Sixty years later, Tertullian acknowledges that it was not
without an appearance of truth that men declared the sun to be the
god of the Christians. But he answered that though they worshiped
toward the east like the heathen, and devoted Sunday to rejoicing, it
was for a reason far different from sun-worship.[544] And on another
occasion, in defending his brethren from the charge of sun-worship,
he acknowledges that these acts, prayer toward the east, and
making Sunday a day of festivity, did give men a chance to think the
sun was the God of the Christians.[545] Tertullian is therefore a
witness to the fact that Sunday was a heathen festival when it
obtained a foothold in the Christian church, and that the Christians,
in consequence of observing it, were taunted with being sun-
worshipers. It is remarkable that in his replies he never claims for
their observance any divine precept or apostolic example. His
principal point was that they had as good a right to do it as the
heathen had. One hundred and twenty one years after Tertullian,
Constantine, while yet a heathen, put forth his famous edict in behalf
of the heathen festival of the sun, which day he pronounced
“venerable.” And this heathen law caused the day to be observed
everywhere throughout the Roman Empire, and firmly established it
both in Church and State. It is certain, therefore, that at the time of
its entrance into the Christian church, Sunday was an ancient weekly
festival of the heathen world.
That this heathen festival was upon the day of Christ’s resurrection
doubtless powerfully contributed to aid “patriotism” and “expediency”
in transforming it into the Lord’s day or Christian Sabbath. For, with
pious motives, as we may reasonably conclude, the professed
people of God early paid a voluntary regard to several days,
memorable in the history of the Redeemer. Mosheim, whose
testimony in behalf of Sunday has been presented already, uses the
following language relative to the crucifixion day:—

“It is also probable that Friday, the day of Christ’s

crucifixion, was early distinguished by particular honors from
the other days of the week.”[546]
 And of the second century, he says:—

“Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on which

Christ was betrayed; and the sixth, which was the day of his
crucifixion.”[547]

Dr. Peter Heylyn says of those who chose Sunday:—

“Because our Saviour rose that day from amongst the

dead, so chose they Friday for another, by reason of our
Saviour’s passion; and Wednesday on the which he had been
betrayed: the Saturday, or ancient Sabbath, being meanwhile
retained in the eastern churches.”[548]

Of the comparative sacredness of these three voluntary festivals,

the same writer testifies:—

“If we consider either the preaching of the word, the

ministration of the sacraments, or the public prayers: the
Sunday in the eastern churches had no great prerogative
above other days, especially above the Wednesday and the
Friday, save that the meetings were more solemn, and the
concourse of people greater than at other times, as is most
likely.”[549]

And besides these three weekly festivals, there were also two
annual festivals of great sacredness. These were the Passover and
the Pentecost. And it is worthy of special notice that although the
Sunday festival can be traced no higher in the church than Justin
Martyr, a. d. 140, the Passover can be traced to a man who claimed
to have received it from the apostles. See chapter thirteen. Among
these festivals, considered simply as voluntary memorials of the
Redeemer, Sunday had very little pre-eminence. For it is well stated
by Heylyn:—
 “Take which you will, either the fathers or the moderns, and
we shall find no Lord’s day instituted by any apostolical
mandate; no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of
the week.”[550]

Domville bears the following testimony, which is worthy of lasting

remembrance:—

“Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries

attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or
to his apostles.”[551]

“Patriotism” and “expediency,” however, erelong elevated

immeasurably above its fellows that one of these voluntary festivals
which corresponded to “the wild solar holiday” of the heathen world,
making that day at last “the Lord’s day” of the Christian church. The
earliest testimony in behalf of first-day observance that has any
claim to be regarded as genuine is that of Justin Martyr, written
about a. d. 140. Before his conversion, he was a heathen
philosopher. The time, place, and occasion of his first Apology or
Defense of the Christians, addressed to the Roman Emperor, is thus
stated by an eminent Roman Catholic historian. He says that Justin
Martyr

“Was at Rome when the persecution that was raised under

the reign of Antoninus Pius, the successor of Adrian, began to
break forth, where he composed an excellent apology in
behalf of the Christians.”[552]

Of the works ascribed to Justin Martyr, Milner says:—

“Like many of the ancient fathers he appears to us under

the greatest disadvantage. Works really his have been lost;
and others have been ascribed to him, part of which are not
his; and the rest, at least, of ambiguous authority.”[553]
 If the writings ascribed to him are genuine, there is little propriety
in the use made of his name by the advocates of the first-day
Sabbath. He taught the abrogation of the Sabbatic institution; and
there is no intimation in his words that the Sunday festival which he
mentions was other than a voluntary observance. Thus he
addresses the emperor of Rome:—

“And upon the day called Sunday, all that live either in city
or country meet together at the same place, where the
writings of the apostles and prophets are read, as much as
time will give leave; when the reader has done, the bishop
makes a sermon, wherein he instructs the people, and
animates them to the practice of such lovely precepts: at the
conclusion of this discourse, we all rise up together and pray;
and prayers being over, as I now said, there is bread and
wine and water offered, and the bishop, as before, sends up
prayers and thanksgivings, with all the fervency he is able,
and the people conclude all with the joyful acclamation of
Amen. Then the consecrated elements are distributed to, and
partaken of, by all that are present, and sent to the absent by
the hands of the deacons. But the wealthy and the willing, for
every one is at liberty, contribute as they think fitting; and this
collection is deposited with the bishop, and out of this he
relieves the orphan and the widow, and such as are reduced
to want by sickness or any other cause, and such as are in
bonds, and strangers that come from far; and, in a word, he is
the guardian and almoner to all the indigent. Upon Sunday we
all assemble, that being the first day in which God set himself
to work upon the dark void, in order to make the world, and in
which Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead; for
the day before Saturday he was crucified, and the day after,
which is Sunday, he appeared unto his apostles and disciples,
and taught them what I have now proposed to your
consideration.”[554]
 This passage, if genuine, furnishes the earliest reference to the
observance of Sunday as a religious festival in the Christian church.
It should be remembered that this language was written at Rome,
and addressed directly to the emperor. It shows therefore what was
the practice of the church in that city and vicinity, but does not
determine how extensive this observance was. It contains strong
incidental proof that apostasy had made progress at Rome; the
institution of the Lord’s supper being changed in part already to a
human ordinance; water being now as essential to the Lord’s supper
as the wine or the bread. And what is still more dangerous as
perverting the institution of Christ, the consecrated elements were
sent to the absent, a step which speedily resulted in their becoming
objects of superstitious veneration, and finally of worship. Justin tells
the emperor that Christ thus ordained; but such a statement is a
grave departure from the truth of the New Testament.
This statement of reasons for Sunday observance is particularly
worthy of attention. He tells the emperor that they assembled upon
the day called Sunday. This was equivalent to saying to him, We
observe the day on which our fellow-citizens offer their adoration to
the sun. Here both “patriotism” and “expediency” discover
themselves in the words of Justin, which were addressed to a
persecuting emperor in behalf of the Christians. But as if conscious
that the observance of a heathen festival as the day of Christian
worship was not consistent with their profession as worshipers of the
Most High, Justin bethinks himself for reasons in defense of this
observance. He assigns no divine precept nor apostolic example for
this festival. For his reference to what Christ taught his disciples, as
appears from the connection, was to the general system of the
Christian religion, and not to the observance of Sunday. If it be said
that Justin might have learned from tradition what is not to be found
in the New Testament relative to Sunday observance, and that after
all Sunday may be a divinely-appointed festival, it is sufficient to
answer, 1. That this plea would show only tradition in favor of the
Sunday festival. 2. That Justin Martyr is a very unsafe guide; his
testimony relative to the Lord’s supper differs from that of the New
Testament. 3. That the American Tract Society, in a work which it
publishes against Romanism, bears the following testimony relative
to the point before us:—

“Justin Martyr appears indeed peculiarly unfitted to lay

claim to authority. It is notorious that he supposed a pillar
erected on the island of the Tiber to Semo Sanchus, an old
Sabine deity, to be a monument erected by the Roman people
in honor of the impostor Simon Magus. Were so gross a
mistake to be made by a modern writer in relating a historical
fact, exposure would immediately take place, and his
testimony would thenceforward be suspected. And assuredly
the same measure should be meted to Justin Martyr, who so
egregiously errs in reference to a fact alluded to by Livy the
historian.”[555]

Justin assigns the following reasons in support of Sunday

observance: “That being the first day in which God set himself to
work upon the dark void in order to make the world, and in which
Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead.” Bishop Jeremy
Taylor most fittingly replies to this:—

“The first of these looks more like an excuse than a just

reason; for if anything of the creation were made the cause of
a Sabbath, it ought to be the end, not the beginning; it ought
to be the rest, not the first part of the work; it ought to be that
which God assigned, not [that] which man should take by way
of after justification.”[556]

It is to be observed, therefore, that the first trace of Sunday as a

Christian festival is found in the church of Rome. Soon after this
time, and thenceforward, we shall find “the bishop” of that church
making vigorous efforts to suppress the Sabbath of the Lord, and to
elevate in its stead the festival of Sunday.
It is proper to note the fact also that Justin was a decided
opponent of the ancient Sabbath. In his “Dialogue with Trypho the
Jew” he thus addressed him:—

“This new law teaches you to observe a perpetual Sabbath;

and you, when you have spent one day in idleness, think you
have discharged the duties of religion.... If any one is guilty of
adultery, let him repent, then he hath kept the true and
delightful Sabbath unto God.... For we really should observe
that circumcision which is in the flesh, and the Sabbath, and
all the feasts, if we had not known the reason why they were
imposed upon you, namely, upon the account of your
iniquities.... It was because of your iniquities, and the
iniquities of your fathers, that God appointed you to observe
the Sabbath.... You see that the heavens are not idle, nor do
they observe the Sabbath. Continue as ye were born. For if
before Abraham there was no need of circumcision, nor of the
sabbaths, nor of feasts, nor of offerings before Moses; so now
in like manner there is no need of them, since Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, was by the determinate counsel of God, born
of a virgin of the seed of Abraham without sin.”[557]

This reasoning of Justin deserves no reply. It shows, however, the

unfairness of Dr. Edwards, who quotes Justin Martyr as a witness for
the change of the Sabbath;[558] whereas Justin held that God made
the Sabbath on account of the wickedness of the Jews, and that he
totally abrogated it in consequence of the first advent of Christ; the
Sunday festival of the heathen being evidently adopted by the
church at Rome from motives of “expediency” and perhaps of
“patriotism.” The testimony of Justin, if genuine, is peculiarly valuable
in one respect. It shows that as late as a. d. 140 the first day of the
week had acquired no title of sacredness; for Justin several times
mentions the day: thrice as “the day called Sunday” and twice as
“the eighth day;” and by other terms also, but never by any sacred
name.[559]
The next important witness in behalf of first-day sacredness is thus
presented by Dr. Edwards:—
 “Hence Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, a disciple of Polycarp,
who had been the companion of the apostles, a. d. 167, says
that the Lord’s day was the Christian Sabbath. His words are,
‘On the Lord’s day every one of us Christians keeps the
Sabbath, meditating on the law and rejoicing in the works of
God.’”[560]

This testimony is highly valued by first-day writers, and is often

and prominently set forth in their publications. Sir Wm. Domville,
whose elaborate treatise on the Sabbath has been several times
quoted, states the following important fact relative to this quotation:
—

“I have carefully searched through all the extant works of

Irenæus and can with certainty state that no such passage, or
any one at all resembling it, is there to be found. The edition I
consulted was that by Massuet (Paris, 1710); but to assure
myself still further, I have since looked to the editions by
Erasmus (Paris, 1563), and Grabe (Oxford, 1702), and in
neither do I find the passage in question.”[561]

It is a remarkable fact that those who quote this as the language of

Irenæus, if they give any reference, cite their readers to Dwight’s
Theology instead of referring them to the place in the works of
Irenæus where it is to be found. It was Dr. Dwight who first enriched
the theological world with this invaluable quotation. Where, then, did
Dwight obtain this testimony which has so many times been given as
that of Irenæus? On this point Domville remarks:—

“He had the misfortune to be afflicted with a disease in his

eyes from the early age of twenty-three, a calamity (says his
biographer) by which he was deprived of the capacity for
reading and study.... The knowledge which he gained from
books after the period above mentioned [by which the editor
 must mean his age of twenty-three] was almost exclusively at
second hand, by the aid of others.”[562]

Domville states another fact which gives us unquestionably the

origin of this quotation:—

“But although not to be found in Irenæus, there are in the

writings ascribed to another father, namely, in the interpolated
epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, and in one of its
interpolated passages, expressions so clearly resembling
those of Dr. Dwight’s quotation as to leave no doubt of the
source from which he quoted.”[563]

Such, then, is the end of this famous testimony of Irenæus, who

had it from Polycarp, who had it from the apostles! It was furnished
the world by a man whose eyesight was impaired; who in
consequence of this infirmity took at second hand an interpolated
passage from an epistle falsely ascribed to Ignatius, and published it
to the world as the genuine testimony of Irenæus. Loss of eyesight,
as we may charitably believe, led Dr. Dwight into the serious error
which he has committed; but by the publication of this spurious
testimony, which seemed to come in a direct line from the apostles,
he has rendered multitudes as incapable of reading aright the fourth
commandment, as he, by loss of natural eyesight, was of reading
Irenæus for himself. This case admirably illustrates tradition as a
religious guide; it is the blind leading the blind until both fall into the
ditch.
Nor is this all that should be said in the case of Irenæus. In all his
writings there is no instance in which he calls Sunday the Lord’s day!
And what is also very remarkable, there is no sentence extant written
by him in which he even mentions the first day of the week![564] It
appears, however, from several statements in ancient writers, that he
did mention the day, though no sentence of his in which it is
mentioned is in existence. He held that the Sabbath was a typical
institution, which pointed to the seventh thousand years as the great
day of rest to the church;[565] he said that Abraham was “without
observance of Sabbaths;”[566] and yet he makes the origin of the
Sabbath to be the sanctification of the seventh day.[567] But he
expressly asserts the perpetuity and authority of the ten
commandments, declaring that they are identical with the law of
nature implanted from the beginning in mankind, that they remain
permanently with us, and that if any one does not observe them he
has no salvation.[568]
It is a remarkable fact that the first instance upon record in which
the bishop of Rome attempted to rule the Christian church was by an
edict in behalf of Sunday. It had been the custom of all the
churches to celebrate the passover, but with this difference: that
while the eastern churches observed it upon the fourteenth day of
the first month, no matter what day of the week this might be, the
western churches kept it upon the Sunday following that day; or
rather, upon the Sunday following Good Friday. Victor, bishop of
Rome, in the year 196,[569] took upon him to impose the Roman
custom upon all the churches; that is, to compel them to observe the
passover upon Sunday. “This bold attempt,” says Bower, “we may
call the first essay of papal usurpation.”[570] And Dowling terms it the
“earliest instance of Romish assumption.”[571] The churches of Asia
Minor informed Victor that they could not comply with his lordly
mandate. Then, says Bower:—

“Upon the receipt of this letter, Victor, giving the reins to an

impotent and ungovernable passion, published bitter
invectives against all the churches of Asia, declared them cut
off from his communion, sent letters of excommunication to
their respective bishops; and, at the same time, in order to
have them cut off from the communion of the whole church,
wrote to the other bishops, exhorting them to follow his
example, and forbear communicating with their refractory
brethren of Asia.”[572]
 The historian informs us that “not one followed his example or
advice; not one paid any sort of regard to his letters, or showed the
least inclination to second him in such a rash and uncharitable
attempt.” He further says:—

“Victor being thus baffled in his attempt, his successors

took care not to revive the controversy; so that the Asiatics
peaceably followed their ancient practice till the Council of
Nice, which out of complaisance to Constantine the Great,
ordered the solemnity of Easter to be kept everywhere on the
same day, after the custom of Rome.”[573]

The victory was not obtained for Sunday in this struggle, as Heylyn
testifies,

“Till the great Council of Nice [a. d. 325] backed by the

authority of as great an emperor [Constantine] settled it better
than before; none but some scattered schismatics, now and
then appearing, that durst oppose the resolution of that
famous synod.”[574]

Constantine, by whose powerful influence the Council of Nice was

induced to decide this question in favor of the Roman bishop, that is,
to fix the passover upon Sunday, urged the following strong reason
for the measure:—

“Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile

rabble of the Jews.”[575]

This sentence is worthy of notice. A determination to have nothing

in common with the Jews had very much to do with the suppression
of the Sabbath in the Christian church. Those who rejected the
Sabbath of the Lord and chose in its stead the more popular and
more convenient Sunday festival of the heathen, were so infatuated
with the idea of having nothing in common with the Jews, that they
never even questioned the propriety of a festival in common with the
heathen.
This festival was not weekly, but annual; but the removal of it from
the fourteenth of the first month to the Sunday following Good Friday
was the first legislation attempted in honor of Sunday as a Christian
festival; and as Heylyn quaintly expresses it, “The Lord’s day found it
no small matter to obtain the victory.”[576] In a brief period after the
Council of Nice, by the laws of Theodosius, capital punishment was
inflicted upon those who should celebrate the feast of the passover
upon any other day than Sunday.[577] The Britons of Wales were
long able to maintain their ground against this favorite project of the
Roman church, and as late as the sixth century “obstinately resisted
the imperious mandates of the Roman pontiffs.”[578]
Four years after the commencement of the struggle just narrated,
bring us to the testimony of Tertullian, the oldest of the Latin fathers,
who wrote about a. d. 200. Dr. Clarke tells us that the fathers “blow
hot and cold.” Tertullian is a fair example of this. He places the origin
of the Sabbath at the creation, but elsewhere says that the patriarchs
did not keep it. He says that Joshua broke the Sabbath at Jericho,
and afterward shows that he did not break it. He says that Christ
broke the Sabbath, and in another place proves that he did not. He
represents the eighth day as more honorable than the seventh, and
elsewhere states the reverse. He states that the law is abolished,
and in other places teaches its perpetuity and authority. He declares
that the Sabbath was abrogated by Christ, and afterward asserts that
“Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath,” but imparted “an additional
sanctity” to “the Sabbath day itself, which from the beginning had
been consecrated by the benediction of the Father.” And he goes on
to say that Christ “furnished to this day divine safeguards—a course
which his adversary would have pursued for some other days, to
avoid honoring the Creator’s Sabbath.”
This last statement is very remarkable. The Saviour furnished
additional safeguards to the Creator’s Sabbath. But “his adversary”
would have done this to some other days. Now it is plain, first, that
Tertullian did not believe that Christ sanctified some other day to take